Do multicomponent workplace health and wellbeing programs predict changes in health and wellbeing?

Abstract

Organizations typically deploy multiple health and wellbeing practices in an overall pro-gram. We explore whether practices in workplace health and wellbeing programs cohere around a small number of archetypal categories or whether differences between organizations are better ex-plained by a continuum. We also examine whether adopting multiple practices predicts subsequent changes in health and wellbeing. Using survey data from 146 organizations, we found differences between organizations were best characterized by a continuum ranging from less to more extensive adoption of practices. Using two‐wave multilevel survey data at both individual and organizational levels (N = 6968 individuals, N = 58 organizations), we found that, in organizations that adopt a wider range of health and wellbeing practices, workers with poor baseline psychological wellbeing were more likely to report subsequent improvements in wellbeing and workers who reported good physical health at baseline were less likely to report experiencing poor health at follow‐up. We found no evidence that adopting multiple health and wellbeing practices buffered the impact of individuals’ workplace psychosocial hazards on physical health or psychological wellbeing.