Whither the ethical case for employee wellbeing? A Critical Review

Employee wellbeing is a key issue for organisations, but this is typically framed in terms of productivity gains. Employees with good wellbeing will miss fewer days of work, are more engaged, more innovative and are likely to work harder. Critical perspectives are suspicious of this notion of the happy-productive worker, they argue that attempts to manage employee wellbeing are really just managerial imperatives to secure greater commitment and productivity. Such imperatives are not only contrary to wellbeing but also provide a facade that cloaks the productive emphasis of management. Rather than engaging in debate the two discourses have tended to talk past one another, ignoring the ethical dimension to the question of why and how to pursue employee wellbeing. We seek to extend the dialogue between critical and managerial perspectives on wellbeing by critically reviewing the literature to explore what ethical claims exist and how this connects with normative arguments about good work and a good life. The review aims to surface the ethical assumptions and commitments that underpin literature on the employee wellbeing to address the question of why employee wellbeing should be a key goal for organisations. We consider the range of different ways in which employee wellbeing might be justified on ethical terms rather than providing an objective ethical truth. Reviewing the literature with this leads us to consider the consequences for work and organisations that different ethical justifications of employee wellbeing might lead to with a view to transformation for the greater good.

The event is hybrid: you can join in person in Room LAB322 (Doctoral School) or online on this Teams link:

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Bio: Dr David Watson is a Senior Lecturer in Organisation Studies and Human Resource Management at the University of Essex. His research centres on the concept of well-being. He is interested in how different experiences of work and configurations of organisation shape well-being. He has worked on a range of interdisciplinary research projects in and outside of academia and his work has been published in a range of journals, books and edited collections. Recently publications include work on gender and stress in the workplace and the role of organisations in supporting wellbeing. Google scholar profile:

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