James K. Harter

Business-unit-level relationship between employee satisfaction, employee engagement, and business outcomes: a meta-analysis.

Based on 7,939 business units in 36 companies, this study used meta-analysis to examine the relationship at the business-unit level between employee satisfaction-engagement and the business-unit outcomes of customer satisfaction, productivity, profit, employee turnover, and accidents. Generalizable relationships large enough to have substantial practical value were found between unit-level employee satisfaction-engagement and these business-unit outcomes. One implication is that changes in management practices that increase employee satisfaction may increase business-unit outcomes, including profit.

Wealth and happiness across the world: Material prosperity predicts life evaluation, whereas psychosocial prosperity predicts positive feeling.

The Gallup World Poll, the first representative sample of planet Earth, was used to explore the reasons why happiness is associated with higher income, including the meeting of basic needs, fulfillment of psychological needs, increasing satisfaction with ones standard of living, and public goods. Across the globe, the association of log income with subjective well-being was linear but convex with raw income, indicating the declining marginal effects of income on subjective well-being. Income was a moderately strong predictor of life evaluation but a much weaker predictor of positive and negative feelings. Possessing luxury conveniences and satisfaction with standard of living were also strong predictors of life evaluation. Although the meeting of basic and psychological needs mediated the effects of income on life evaluation to some degree, the strongest mediation was provided by standard of living and ownership of conveniences. In contrast, feelings were most associated with the fulfillment of psychological needs: learning, autonomy, using ones skills, respect, and the ability to count on others in an emergency. Thus, two separate types of prosperity-economic and social psychological-best predict different types of well-being.

Causal Impact of Employee Work Perceptions on the Bottom Line of Organizations

Perceptions of work conditions have proven to be important to the well-being of workers. However, customer loyalty, employee retention, revenue, sales, and profit are essential to the success of any business. It is known that these outcomes are correlated with employee attitudes and perceptions of work conditions, but the research into direction of causality has been inconclusive. Using a massive longitudinal database that included 2,178 business units in 10 large organizations, we found evidence supporting the causal impact of employee perceptions on these bottom-line measures; reverse causality of bottom-line measures on employee perceptions existed but was weaker. Managerial actions and practices can impact employee work conditions and employee perceptions of these conditions, thereby improving key outcomes at the organizational level. Perceptions of specific work conditions that engage employees in their work provide practical guidance in how best to manage people to obtain desired results.

Race Effects on the Employee Engagement-Turnover Intention Relationship

In this paper we review extant research findings on employee engagement. We then outline and test potential differences in the relationship between engagement and intent to remain with the organization, based upon variations in the racial composition of the supervisor-employee dyad. Our analyses revealed an interaction whereby at low levels of engagement, members of different-race dyads report a lower tendency to remain with their organization for at least one year than members of same-race dyads; at high levels of engagement, intent to remain was greater for members of different-race dyads. We discuss implications of our findings for organizational practice and research.

Day-of-week mood patterns in the United States: On the existence of ‘Blue Monday’, ‘Thank God it's Friday’ and weekend effects

There are many beliefs about the patterning of positive and negative mood over the course of the week. Support has been found for ‘Blue Monday’, ‘Thank God its Friday’ and Weekdays versus Weekend effects, although in relatively small studies and often with student samples. Using telephone questionnaire data from a large national survey (N = 340,000), we examined day-of-week (DOW) effects on positive and negative moods. Unlike prior studies, we also tested the potential moderating effects of four demographic variables on DOW. Strong support was found for better mood on weekends and Fridays, but there was minimal support for a Blue Monday effect and no differences were observed between Saturdays and Sundays. Demographics moderated some DOW effects: DOW effects were diminished for older and retired respondents, but there was little DOW difference by gender or presence of a partner. DOW is associated with mood, but not always in ways we believe.

Income’s Differential Influence on Judgments of Life Versus AffectiveWell-Being

Findings are presented indicating that measures of subjective well-being can be ordered along a dimension varying from evaluative judgments of life at one end to experienced affect at the other. A debate in recent decades has focused on whether increasing income raises the experience of well-being. We found that judgment measures are more strongly associated with income and with the long-term changes of national income. Measures of affect showed lower correlations with income in cross-sectional analyses, as well as lower associations with long-term rising income. Measures of concepts such as “Happiness” and “Life Satisfaction” appear to be saturated with varying mixtures of judgment and affect, and this is reflected in the degree to which they correlate with income. The results indicate that measures of well-being fall along one dimension with different factors influencing scores at each end. Both types of well-being, judgment and affect, show very similar patterns of declining marginal utility with increasing income.

Gender Diversity, Business-Unit Engagement, and Performance

This study investigates the relationship between gender diversity and financial performance at the business-unit level and whether employee engagement moderates this relationship. Using more than 800 business units from two companies belonging to two different industries, we found that employee engagement and gender diversity independently predict financial performance at the business-unit level. One implication is that making diversity an organizational priority and creating an engaged culture for the workforce may result in cumulative financial benefits.

The Socioeconomic Gradient in Daily Colds and Influenza, Headaches, and Pain

T hat markers of socioeconomic status (SES) such as household income and educational attainment are associated with major health outcomes is a compelling finding, although the cause(s) of the association are unknown. The SES gradient in serious health problems is well established in the United States and other countries. It is less clear if SES is related to health on a day-to-day basis, that is, to respiratory symptoms, headaches, and pain from all causes. Everyday symptoms are important components of health that significantly affect productivity and peoples’ well-being. Compared with other outcomes that have previously been related to SES, everyday symptoms may be associated with different pathological processes that are more short lived (eg, time-limited alteration in immune function) than chronic conditions. An opportunity to explore the associations between 4 everyday symptoms and SES in a largescale, representative US population sample was possible through the use of a new Gallup-Healthways survey. We examined associations between education and household income (SES markers) and self-reported cold, influenza, headache, and pain reported for the previous day. Although self-reports are subject to various distortions, the brief recall interval reduces the likelihood of recall errors.

Economic and labor market forces matter for worker well-being.

In light of recent interest in societal subjective well-being, policies that seek to improve the economy and labor markets need to address the question of whether economic factors matter for worker well-being, specifically job satisfaction. In a worldwide representative poll of 136 nations, economic factors are associated with job satisfaction beyond demographic and job factors. Hierarchical linear modeling showed that higher national GDP and job optimism was associated with job satisfaction, whereas higher unemployment was associated with job dissatisfaction. Mediational analyses revealed that economic variables (GDP and job optimism) were partially mediated by job satisfaction in predicting life satisfaction; full mediation was found for unemployment. In a second study, time series regression of monthly data from a nationally representative poll in the United States from 2008 to 2011 revealed that unemployment rate was significantly associated with job dissatisfaction over time. There was some evidence that prior unemployment rates predicted job satisfaction at a higher level than job satisfaction predicted unemployment rates, suggesting that economic factors lead to job (dis)satisfaction rather than the converse. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

The Well-Being 5: Development and Validation of a Diagnostic Instrument to Improve Population Well-being

Building upon extensive research from 2 validated well-being instruments, the objective of this research was to develop and validate a comprehensive and actionable well-being instrument that informs and facilitates improvement of well-being for individuals, communities, and nations. The goals of the measure were comprehensiveness, validity and reliability, significant relationships with health and performance outcomes, and diagnostic capability for intervention. For measure development and validation, questions from the Well-being Assessment and Wellbeing Finder were simultaneously administered as a test item pool to over 13,000 individuals across 3 independent samples. Exploratory factor analysis was conducted on a random selection from the first sample and confirmed in the other samples. Further evidence of validity was established through correlations to the established well-being scores from the Well-Being Assessment and Wellbeing Finder, and individual outcomes capturing health care utilization and productivity. Results showed the Well-Being 5 score comprehensively captures the known constructs within well-being, demonstrates good reliability and validity, significantly relates to health and performance outcomes, is diagnostic and informative for intervention, and can track and compare well-being over time and across groups. With this tool, well-being deficiencies within a population can be effectively identified, prioritized, and addressed, yielding the potential for substantial improvements to the health status, performance, and quality of life for individuals and cost savings for stakeholders.