ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Measurement of Well-Being in the Workplace
The Development of the Work Well-Being Questionnaire
Gordon B. Parker, MD, FRANZCP,*Þ and Matthew P. Hyett, BSc, PGDipPsychÞ
Abstract: Because there has been a lack of a single comprehensive measure
for assessing workplace well-being, we elected to develop such a self-report
measure. Provisional items were extracted from the literature on ‘‘positive
psychology’’ and were adapted to capture their workplace application. The
provisional 50-item set was completed by a nonclinical sample of 150 adults.
A second and third sample was recruited to examine its reliability and any
impact of depressed mood and sociodemographic and work-related variables,
respectively. Factor analysis identified four domains, ‘‘Work Satisfaction,’’
‘‘Organizational Respect for the Employee,’’ ‘‘Employer Care,’’ and a negative
constructV‘‘Intrusion of Work into Private Life.’’ High test-retest reliability
was demonstrated for the final 31-item measure, whereas there was no dis-
tinct impact of depressed mood on the scale scores. Work Satisfaction scale
scores were influenced by job type. Gender effects were found for two of the
four scales, whereas a longer period of employment inversely linked to
Organizational Respect for the Employee and Employer Care scores and was
conversely associated with higher Intrusion of Work into Private Life scores.
The refined measure should enable individuals and employers to quantify the
levels of support and well-being provided by employing organizations.
Key Words: Workplace, job satisfaction, well-being, positive psychology.
(J Nerv Ment Dis 2011;199: 394Y397)
‘‘Choose a job you love, and you will never have
to work a day in your lifeI’’
Confucius
J ob satisfactionVor the lack of itVand the consequential impacts
have been widely researched (Harter et al., 2002; Iaffaldano
and Muchinsky, 1985; Judge et al., 2001). Many of the current and
commonly used measures, as developed by Ironson et al. (1989),
Kunin (1955), Smith et al. (1969), and Weiss et al. (1967), have been
judged, however, as having limitations (e.g., too lengthy, too brief,
lacking face validity, or being focused too heavily on one construct).
For example, the existing measures of job satisfaction (Smith et al.,
1969) focus exclusively on measuring that domain only, and although
they may be valid measures of a given construct to be of use in
*School of Psychiatry, University of New South Wales; and †Black Dog Institute,
Prince of Wales Hospital, Sydney, Australia.
This study was supported by a National Health and Medical Research Council
Program grant (510135), an Infrastructure Grant from the New South Wales
Department of Health, and a grant from the Department of Health and Aging.
Send reprint requests to Gordon B. Parker, MD, FRANZCP, Black Dog Institute,
Prince of Wales Hospital, Hospital Road, Randwick, Australia 2031.
E-mail: g.parker@unsw.edu.au.
Copyright * 2011 by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
ISSN: 0022-3018/11/19906-0394
DOI: 10.1097/NMD.0b013e31821cd3b9
394 www.jonmd.com The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease
Copyright © 2011 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is prohibited.
research studies, they often have to be used in conjunction with other
measures that assess or predict well-being. Furthermore, most mea-
sures weight the negative aspects of the workplace, rather than con-
sider its capacity for the optimization of the worker’s skills and for the
potential development of their sense of self-worth, particularly when
there has been an increased interest in ‘‘positive psychology’’ in the
last decade and with a number of measures (Diener, 2000; Folland,
2007; Putnam, 2000) assessing an individual’s levels of well-being and
happiness.
Well-being has been widely researched, and it has been suggested
to comprise two distinct viewpoints: the contemporary hedonic view
and, drawing on Aristotelian ideology, the eudamonic view (for a re-
view, see Ryan and Deci, 2001). Although not mutually exclusive, each
has generated its own research focus, from which research on well-
being in the workplace has been variably derived. In a review on
workplace well-being, Danna and Griffin (1999) observed that re-
search in this domain area was somewhat disjointed but recognized
several areas as providing important insights. For example, well-being
research relates closely to ‘‘health psychology,’’ and with seminal work
by Marmot (1991) indicating that employees in low control, low sat-
isfaction, and unvaried workload ‘‘employment grades’’ have signif-
icantly increased the rates of health concerns (e.g., increased obesity
and hypertension). Because the principles of ‘‘positive psychology’’ are
broad, their relevance in assessing the workplace milieu is suggested.
This stimulated our objective of designing a brief self-report measure
capturing several constructs of well-being and positive psychology
that might be relevant to the workplace setting. This paper reports the
development of the measure.
METHODS
The constructs were derived from a number of reviews of
factors contributing to employee well-being and of positive psychol-
ogy principles (Cloninger, 2004; Diener et al., 1985; Huppert et al.,
2005; Iaffaldano and Muchinsky, 1985; Judge et al., 2001; Klein,
2006; Peterson et al., 2005; Wrzesniewski et al., 1997) and with items
written to capture salient workplace components. We derived 50 items
and, to ensure a 3:1 ratio (of subjects to items) for undertaking a factor
analyses, set a recruitment target of 150 subjects exposed to a wide
variety of workplace conditions and not necessarily representative of
any one workplace environment. The participants were asked to rate
the items that best represented their current and most relevant work
situation on a 5-point scale: 0, not at all; 1, slightly; 2, moderately; 3,
very; and 4, extremely true. Data were derived for 9 months from the
relatives of patients attending clinics at the Black Dog Institute and
who were invited to complete the provisional questionnaire anony-
mously and ‘‘post’’ it in an office-based letter box. No formal record of
the response rate was obtained, and no details of the respondents (e.g.,
age or gender) or of their work background were sought because our
intent was to refine the measure so as to identify its molar constructs.
Subsequently, an independent sample of 30 patients was se-
lected to examine test-retest reliability and any impact of the de-
pressed mood state on final measure scores. All patients were being
managed for a depressive condition, and their mood state ranged from
severely depressed to euthymic. The subsequently refined questionnaire
was administered twice (test-retest method) at a mean interval of
& Volume 199, Number 6, June 2011
The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease & Volume 199, Number 6, June 2011 Validation of the WWQ

29.2 days (SD, 29.2 days) and with their depression severity at each
test occasion quantified using the Depression in the Medically Ill
(DMI-10) measure [17] on each occasion.
Finally, a calibration study was undertaken. To derive the
scale norms for representative population groups differing on socio-
demographic and work level variables, a large sample was derived
by seeking volunteers via our website (blackdoginstitute.org.au) to
complete the measure in relation to their current or, if unemployed,
most recent job. In addition to the online completion of the 31-item
questionnaire, all participants completed six additional questions
providing information on their occupational level (i.e., professional,
managerial, sales worker, technical/trade worker, laborer, machinery
operator/driver, clerical/administrative, and community/personal ser-
vice worker), job type, length of employment, age, gender, and
earning status (e.g., salaried, paid by the hour, contract).
RESULTS
Refinement of the Measure
A principal component analysis was undertaken using a Scree
plot indicating that four factors were sufficient, and with those four
factors accounting for 52.5% of the variance. The first factor was
titled ‘‘Work Satisfaction,’’ with the highest loading items capturing
the respondents’ judgments of the extent to which they viewed their
work as fulfilling and whether their work increased their sense of
self-worth, provided life with some purpose and meaning, and ad-
vanced their skills. This factor accounted for 18.8% of the variance.
The second factor, ‘‘Organizational Respect for the Employee’’
(13.5% of the variance), was characterized by items indicating that
the respondent judged senior organization representatives as trust-
worthy, as having ethical values, and as valuing staff and treating
them well. The third factor, named ‘‘Employer Care’’ (10.9% of the
variance), had items weighted to the individual ‘‘boss’’ (rather than
to the organization, as in the previous factor). These items encap-
sulated judgments of the boss: whether he or she was caring, willing
to lend an ear, and understanding about work concerns and treated
the employees as they sought. The fourth factor, ‘‘Intrusion of Work
into Private Life’’ (9.3% of the variance) was a negative factor, with
high loading items capturing whether the individual felt stressed and
pressured at work to meet the targets, found it hard to ‘‘wind down’’
after work, and judged that work ate into their private life and
whether the work impacted on their self-esteem. We then derived the
final measure by deleting items that had content and factor loadings
indicating overlap and others that had low factor loadings.

TABLE 1. Varimax-Rotated Component Matrix Item Correlations of the Four-Factor Model of Workplace Well-Being
Item Factor 1 Factor 2 Factor 3 Factor 4
Is your work fulfilling? 0.83
Do your daily work activities give you a sense of direction and meaning? 0.82
Does your work bring a sense of satisfaction? 0.82
Does your work increase your sense of self-worth? 0.78
Does your job allow you to recraft your job to suit your strengths? 0.64
Does your work make you feel that, as a person, you are flourishing? 0.62
Do you feel capable and effective in your work on a day-to-day basis? 0.57
Does your work offer challenges to advance your skills? 0.56
Do you feel you have some level of independence at work? 0.56
Do you feel personally connected to your organization’s values? 0.52
In general terms, do you trust the senior people in your organization? 0.79
Do you believe in the principles by which your organization operates? 0.75
Do you feel content with the way your organization treats its employees? 0.75
Do you feel that your organization respects the staff? 0.70
How satisfied are you with your organization’s value system? 0.66
Compared with your organization’s ‘‘ideal values,’’ to what degree are actual work values positive? 0.61
Do people at your work believe in the worth of the organization? 0.56
At a difficult time, would your boss be willing to lend an ear? 0.83
Is your boss caring? 0.81
Do you feel that your boss is empathic and understanding about your work concerns? 0.77
Does your boss treat you as you would like to be treated? 0.74
Does your boss shoulder some of your worries about work? 0.73
Do you feel your transactions with your boss are, in general, positive? 0.71
Do you believe that your employer cares about his or her staff’s well-being? 0.48
Does your work eat into your private life? 0.77
Do you feel stressed in organizing your work time to meet demands? 0.77
Do you feel excessively pressured at work to meet targets? 0.76
After work, do you find it hard to wind down? 0.75
Do you find yourself thinking negatively about work outside of work hours? 0.60
Do you feel that you can separate yourself easily from your work when you leave for the day?a j0.55
Does your work impact negatively on your self-esteem? 0.54
The completion instructions were ‘‘Please answer the following questions by checking the appropriate box. Choose the option that best represents your current and most relevant
work situation (i.e., the work role where you spend most of your time and with who you have most contact).’’ The scoring for each factor involved summing the scores from each item
(Note: reverse scoring of one item for the ‘‘Intrusion of Work into Private Life’’ factor).
a
Denotes reverse scored item.

* 2011 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins www.jonmd.com 395

Copyright © 2011 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is prohibited.
Parker and Hyett The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease
Table 1 reports the highest loading items on each of the four
derived factors, containing 10 items from the first factor and seven
from each of the three other factors. The mean (SD) scores were 20.9
(8.7), 14.5 (6.5), 14.6 (7.2), and 10.9 (5.0), respectively. Intercorre-
lation of the factor scores indicated that factors 1 and 2 were mod-
erately correlated (r = 0.64, p G 0.001), as were factors 1 and 3
(r = 0.45, p G 0.001), whereas factors 2 and 3 were more highly
correlated (r = 0.72, p G 0.001). Factor 4 scores were negatively
correlated with factors 1, 2, and 3 (r = j0.19, p = 0.024; r = j0.39,
p G 0.001; r = j0.42, p G 0.001), respectively.
Test-Retest Reliability and Impact of Depressed
Mood on Scale Scores
The contribution of depression severity to questionnaire scores
was partitioned out by regressing each individual factor score on the
DMI-10 (Parker et al., 2002) depression severity scores at both test
and retest occasions and then saving the unstandardized residuals as
variables. These residuals were then correlated to quantify test-retest
reliability. The Pearson correlations (all significant at P G 0.001) were
quantified as r = 0.85 for Work Satisfaction with scale means of test,
25.0 (SD, 7.9) and retest, 23.8 (SD, 7.5); r = 0.83 for Organizational
Respect for the Employee with scale means of test, 17.1 (SD, 7.8)
and retest, 16.17 (SD, 6.7); r = 0.81 for Employer Care with scale
means of test, 17.9 (SD, 8.0) and retest, 16.8 (SD, 7.4); and r = 0.78
for Intrusion of Work into Private Life with scale means of test,
12.4 (SD, 5.8) and retest, 13.3 (SD, 5.9). For the overall scale, the
correlation for the residuals was r = 0.83 with total scale means of
test, 72.5 (SD, 20.0) and retest, 69.9 (SD, 19.8). When not considering
any impact of state depression, standard test-retest correlations revealed
a similar pattern of results using Pearson r values of 0.91, 0.95, 0.87,
and 0.71 for factors 1 to 4, respectively (all p G 0.0001), and r = 0.91
( p = 0.0001) for the overall scale.
Calibration Study
We ceased recruitment when we had 1218 fully completed
questionnaires. Because this was an online questionnaire, we were
able to collect the Internet provider addresses of the participants and
cross-check against age and employment category data to narrow the
possibility that the questionnaires might have been completed more
than once by the same person. This resulted in only 12 likely such
duplicates being identified, and for these 12, only the first completed
questionnaire data were used. The subsequent analyses report on the
remaining 1206 participants, consisting of 823 females and 383
males.
We recoded the job level by first collapsing the forced-choice
response of nine levels to two, so that ‘‘managerial’’ and ‘‘professional’’
became a ‘‘professional/supervisory/managerial’’ group (n = 741) and
the remaining categories of employment became a ‘‘nonprofessional/
nonsupervisory/nonmanagerial’’ group (n = 465). These two catego-
ries have been used in previous meta-analyses of job satisfaction
(Petty et al., 1984). So that no individual case was misrepresented
we next identified open-ended responses to the employment position
where participants described their work role in more detail (e.g., a
counselor who coded themselves as a community services worker
was recoded as a professional, assuming that some degree of tertiary
study is required for the differential coding). Each case was checked
against the two broad categories, and 47 changes were made to reflect
the nonprofessionals who should have otherwise been coded as pro-
fessionals, resulting in a group of 785, whereas there were only three
instances of professionals being recoded as nonprofessionals, resulting
in a group of 421.
The derived scale scores were compared for the two compari-
son groups. An analysis of variance showed higher Work Satisfac-
tion scores being returned by those in the professional/supervisory/
managerial group (mean, 18.1; SD, 8.2) compared with those in the
396 www.jonmd.com
Copyright © 2011 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is prohibited.
& Volume 199, Number 6, June 2011
nonprofessional/nonsupervisory/nonmanagerial group (mean, 15.1;
SD, 8.6; F = 34.9, df = 1, p G 0.0001). There was greater per-
ceived Intrusion of Work into Private Life in the professional/
supervisory/managerial group (mean, 15.2; SD, 6.4) compared with
the nonprofessional/nonsupervisory/nonmanagerial group (mean, 14.4;
SD, 6.5; F = 4.3, df = 1, p = 0.038). We categorized the length of time
in any current position as a) 0 to 2 years, b) 2.1 to 5 years, c) 5.1 to
10 years, d) 10.1 to 20 years, and e) 20.1 years or more. A linear
regression analysis indicated no impact on Work Satisfaction scores.
However, with longer employment came decreased scores on Organi-
zational Respect for the Employee (A = j0.57, df = 1, p G 0.0001),
decreased scores on Employer Care (A = j0.55, df = 1, p = 0.001)
and increased scores on Intrusion of Work into Private Life (A = 0.54,
df = 1, p G 0.0001).
Gender effects were found for two of the four scales, with the
women rating Work Satisfaction higher than the men (17.5 vs. 16.1;
F = 6.5, df = 1, p = 0.01) and also scoring higher on Organizational
Respect for the Employee (11.5 vs. 10.5; F = 5.6, df = 1, p = 0.02).
As previous research has identified differential work satisfaction for
those engaged in full-time work (and employed by an organization)
versus those who charge by the hour or who are self-employed (Benz
and Frey, 2008), the latter two categories were collapsed into one cat-
egory (‘‘contractor’’) and were compared against ‘‘salaried’’ workers
on each of the scales. No scale score differences were identified.
DISCUSSION
We believe that this is the first measure of workplace satisfac-
tion to be developedVwith the measurement of multiple constructs
in a single questionnaire being a primary objectiveVwhile adhering
to the concepts already established in the well-being and positive
psychology literature. Four factors accounted for 53% of the variance,
and the identification of the first factor as capturing Work Satisfaction
is encouraging in suggesting the face validity of the measure. The next
two scales capture bidirectional work contributions, thus assessing the
degree to which the employee respects the employer and, second, the
extent to which the employer cares for the employee. The final scale
captures an important componentVthe extent to which work intrudes
into private life. Therefore, the derived scales appear salient. We dem-
onstrated high test-retest reliability for individual and total scale scores
and found no distinct impact of depressed mood state on scale com-
pletion. We did find several gender and socioeconomic effects on scale
scores, but these were not as distinctive as we had presupposed.
As an experiential subjective measure, it should be antici-
pated that there would be major personality effects on the scoresVas
for any subjective measure. We respect a tenet of psychiatry and
psychologyVthat people are disturbed less by things and more by
their perception of things. If it is accepted that it is perception
that mattersVand this seems to be valid for subjective well-beingV
then personality becomes peripheral. Nevertheless, weVand other
researchersVmay well wish to examine the impact of a range of
personality factors on measure scores in later studies. Furthermore,
contextual biases could compromise self-report scores. For example,
an aggrieved worker might give harshly critical responses. Con-
versely, an employee that was too dependent on the organization
(or who judged that their scores might be identifiable) might return
overly positive responses. Such biases need to be recognized in con-
sidering applications of the measure.
CONCLUSIONS
How might the current measure be used? An individual might
wish to compare their scores against the scale scores derived in our
studies. Alternatively, an organization might wish to obtain a profile
of its impact on the well-being (or workplace ‘‘stress’’) of its staff
and have the form returned anonymously by representative staff
* 2011 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease & Volume 199, Number 6, June 2011
members, as a general assessment or as a ‘‘before and after’’ measure
quantifying any organizational structural change. However, an organi-
zation considering the use of the instrument would need to recognize
that any findings would reflect more on their employees than on the
workplace itself. In relation to the latter, we plan to derive a database
of scores across differing workplaces so that the reference will reflect
some identified sex and sociodemographic influences. The measure
may be used currently as a ‘‘paper’’ test, although we anticipate im-
plementing a Web-based version for anonymous completion and for
rapid generation of scores.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank Dusan Hadzi-Pavlovic for statistical advice, Kerrie
Eyers for editorial assistance, and the subjects and staff for contrib-
uting to the data collection.
REFERENCES
Benz M, Frey BS (2008) Being independent is a great thing: Subjective evaluations
of self-employment and hierarchy. Economica. 75:362Y383.
Cloninger CR (Ed) (2004) Feeling good: The science of well-being. Oxford, UK:
Oxford University Press.
Danna K, Griffin RW (1999) Health and well-being in the workplace: A review and
synthesis of the literature. J Manage. 25:357Y384.
Diener E (2000) Subjective well-being: The science of happiness and a proposal
for a national index. Am Psychol. 5:34Y43.
Diener E, Emmons RA, Larsen RJ, Griffin S (1985) The satisfaction with life scale.
J Pers Assess. 49:71Y75.
Folland S (2007) Does ‘community social capital’ contribute to population health?
Soc Sci Med. 64:2342Y2354.
Harter JK, Schmidt FL, Keyes CL (2002) Well-being in the workplace and its
relationship to business outcomes: A review of the Gallup studies. In CL Keyes,
J Haidt (Eds) Flourishing: The positive person and the good life (pp 205Y224).
Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
* 2011 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
Copyright © 2011 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is prohibited.
Validation of the WWQ
Huppert FA, Baylis N, Keverne B (2005) The science of well being. Oxford, UK:
Oxford University Press.
Iaffaldano MT, Muchinsky PM (1985) Job satisfaction and job performance: A
meta-analysis. Psychol Bull. 97:251Y273.
Ironson GH, Smith PC, Brannick MT, Gibson WM, Paul KB (1989) Construction
of a Job in General Scale: A comparison of global, composite, and specific
measures. J Appl Psychol. 74:193Y200.
Judge TA, Thoresen CJ, Bono JE, Patton GK (2001) The job satisfaction-job
performance relationship: A qualitative and quantitative review. Psychol Bull.
127:376Y407.
Klein S (2006) The science of happiness. Carlton, Australia: Scribe.
Kunin T (1955) The construction of a new type of attitude measure. Pers Psychol.
8:65Y78.
Marmot MG, Davey Smith G, Stansfeld S, Patel C, North F, Head J, White I,
Brunner E, Feeney A (1991) Health inequalities among British civil servants:
The Whitehall II study. Lancet. 337:1387Y1393.
Parker G, Hilton T, Bains J, Hadzi-Pavlovic D (2002) Cognitive-based measures
screening for depression in the medically ill: The DMI-10 and DMI-18. Acta
Psychiatr Scand. 105:419Y426.
Peterson C, Park N, Seligman MEP (2005) Assessment of character strengths. In GP
Koocher, JC Norcross, SS Hill III (Eds) Psychologists’ Desk Reference (2nd ed,
pp 95Y98). New York: Oxford University Press.
Petty MM, McGee GW, Cavender JW (1984) A meta-analysis of the relationships
between individual job satisfaction and individual performance. Acad Manage
Rev. 9:712Y721.
Putnam RD (2000) Bowling alone. Sydney, Australia: Simon & Schuster.
Ryan RM, Deci EL (2001). On happiness and human potentials: A review of
research on hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. Annu Rev Psychol. 52:
141Y166.
Smith PC, Kendall LM, Hulin LL (1969) The measurement of satisfaction in work
and retirement. Skokie, IL: Rand McNally.
Weiss DJ, Dawis RV, England GW, Lofquist LH (1967) Manual for the Minnesota
Satisfaction Questionnaire. Minneapolis, MN: University Minnesota, Industrial
of Relations Center.
Wrzesniewski A, McCauley CR, Rozin P, Schwartz B (1997) Jobs, careers, and
callings: People’s relations to their work. J Res Pers. 31:21Y33.
www.jonmd.com 397