I’ve heard people say employee well-being is just a bunch of woo-woo. Turns out it is more Ric Flair, “WOOOO!”

A report from researchers at Oxford and Harvard this month has shown a strong positive relationship between employee wellbeing and firm performance.

The study aggregated data from over 1,600 listed companies in the US. It measured the impact of job satisfaction, purpose, happiness, and stress. Using these wellbeing measures to predict firm performance, Jan-Emmanuel De NeveMicah Kaats, and George Ward found that wellbeing is associated with firm profitability.

Credit to my “Yellow Goldfish: Nine Ways to Increase Happiness in Business to Drive Growth, Productivity, and Prosperity” co-author Rosaria Cirillo Louwman CCXP CiHS for sharing the report.

https://wellbeing.hmc.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/wellbeing2/documents/media/2304_wp_workplace_wellbeing_and_firm_performance_doi.pdf

The research found that companies with the highest levels of wellbeing also subsequently outperform standard benchmarks in the stock market. In fact, if you invested $1,000 in companies with strong employee wellbeing in January 2021, you’d have $1,300 by the start of March 2023. A similar investment in the S&P 500 would have netted you just $1,100. That’s a 200% difference. Can I get another Ric Flair, “WOOOO!”

Not familiar with the “Nature Boy” Ric Flair, here is a few WOOOO’s to bring you up to speed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0t6llGkBLo