Education Sector Ranks Lowest for Employee Wellbeing, Great Place To Work® Report Reveals
Insights from Great Place To Work’s UK Workplace Culture Population Study
Employee wellbeing is a holistic concept encompassing individuals’ subjective experiences of their working lives. It is an outcome and personal assessment of how people feel about their workplace; for employers, it is all about creating the conditions for them to thrive.
Leveraging their research-based Trust Index Survey, Great Place To Work® has conducted a UK population study, surveying 2,200 employees across 11 sectors to create The State of Employee Wellbeing in the Workplace Report 2024.
Following this, they used their Extended Wellbeing Index to measure holistic workplace wellbeing across areas such as Interpersonal Relationships, Job Design & Fulfilment, Work-Life Balance, Psychological Safety, Mental, Physical & Financial Health, and General Evaluation of Wellbeing.
Each sector received an Extended Wellbeing Index score and was ranked from highest to lowest based on their overall wellbeing experiences.
The Education sector is the lowest-ranking sector in the Great Place To Work® Wellbeing Index
Education is the lowest-ranking sector in the Wellbeing Index, scoring the lowest of all sectors analysed when it came to work-life balance. Work-life balance, although often an outcome of other job and culture variables, is closely associated with the experience of employee wellbeing – and has taken on new meaning (and challenges) in an era of hybrid and remote working.
The industry also scored amongst the lowest for psychological safety, which relates to how employees assess the quality of the psychosocial work environment. This includes the extent to which people feel free to speak up, challenge norms and decisions, show vulnerability and express their authentic selves.
Despite this, the Education sector did rank highly for job design & fulfilment. This score considers important individual role-related variables rather than focusing on the wider workplace culture: how are employees’ job roles structured, and how do people feel about them?
This includes the extent to which employees experience fulfilment from their jobs, how fairly they feel compensated for it, and whether they’re able to comfortably cope with their job demands.
What do employees want most to encourage wellbeing within the workplace?
Perks and wellness programs often fall short of addressing the true needs of employees for enhancing their wellbeing. By analysing a sample of 1,000 comments from UK employees, Great Place To Work® discovered that employees now look for the following to support their personal wellbeing:
- Work-Life Balance & Hybrid Working
- Workload, Resourcing & Processes
- People Management
- Pay & Financial Security
- Benefits & Wellbeing Programs
Sara Silvonen, Senior Consultant & Wellbeing Lead, Great Place To Work UK, said:
“At the heart of every organisation is its people and looking after their wellbeing should be much more integrative than a package of impressive perks on a careers website. Wellbeing, engagement, and trust between employees go hand in hand as critical ingredients of a successful workplace culture. By creating the conditions for thriving through job design, the work environment and high-trust relationships, organisations can set employees up for success in terms of productivity and long-term commitment to their mission and purpose.”
To see the full report, please visit: https://uk.greatplacetowork.co.uk/workplace-wellbeing-report
