A company's engagement results have been strong for years: employees believe in their work, are proud of the company and want to stay. Yet in the same year, leave usage drops, after-hours emails rise and some of the best performers leave saying "I'm just tired." The engagement survey missed this picture because it measured engagement, not wellbeing.

Employee wellbeing has moved to the top of the HR agenda in recent years. But "wellbeing" is a broad concept that is easily diluted. If you don't clarify what you are measuring when designing the survey, you end up either with a generic satisfaction survey or with a form full of personal questions the organization cannot act on. In this article we explain what employee wellbeing is, which dimensions to measure, the WHO-5 Well-Being Index, sample questions by dimension, what to watch out for when running the survey and what to do with the results.

For a broader, pandemic-era view of the topic, you can also read our article Mental Health for All of Us.

What is employee wellbeing?

Employee wellbeing is an employee's overall physical, mental, social and financial state of being well. When people talk about wellbeing at work, they mean two things together:

• How well the person is: Their energy, mood, ability to rest, and whether they feel alone or supported.
• How work affects that state: Workload, pace, the manager's attitude, team relationships, whether pay is enough to live on.

The part the organization can directly influence is the second one. That is why a good wellbeing survey doesn't only ask "How are you?" It also asks "How is your work affecting you?"

How does wellbeing differ from satisfaction and engagement?

These three concepts are often confused, but they measure different things:

The distinction matters because high engagement can hide low wellbeing. Highly engaged employees tolerate overwork and fatigue for a long time; the result is burnout and unexpected resignations. We explain the difference between satisfaction and engagement in detail in our article on employee satisfaction vs. employee engagement.

Why measure wellbeing?

• To see burnout and attrition risk early: A decline in wellbeing usually comes before a decline in performance and engagement. We also cover ways to catch these signals in our article on quiet cracking.
• To make sure wellbeing spending goes to the right place: Many organizations invest in personal programs such as yoga classes, app subscriptions or seminars. Survey results, however, often show that the problem lies in workload, meeting culture or manager behavior.
• To see differences between groups: Wellbeing can differ markedly for shift workers, field employees, new managers or employees with caregiving responsibilities. You cannot see these differences without measuring.
• To compare what the organization says with what it does: How do employees actually experience the message "We care about our employees' wellbeing"? The survey makes this visible.

Which dimensions should you measure?

One of the most widely used frameworks for structuring wellbeing is the five elements described by Gallup's Tom Rath and Jim Harter in Wellbeing: The Five Essential Elements (2010): career, social, financial, physical and community wellbeing. This framework looks at a person's life as a whole. In an employee survey, it is more useful to combine these dimensions with the working conditions the organization can influence.

The structure we suggest consists of seven dimensions:

Not every organization needs to measure all seven dimensions. Clarify the purpose of the survey first: for example, if your goal is to understand the impact of hybrid work, workload, social wellbeing and manager support come to the fore. For more on setting the purpose, see our article on setting goals before an employee survey.

The WHO-5 Well-Being Index for overall wellbeing

Using an established scale to measure overall wellbeing, rather than writing your own questions, makes it easier to compare results over time and with external data. The most widely used tool for this purpose is the WHO-5 Well-Being Index.

The WHO-5 is a short 5-item scale developed in 1998 at the World Health Organization's Regional Office for Europe that asks about the past two weeks. It is free to use and has been adapted into many languages. The items are:

Scoring: Each item is answered from 0 ("At no time") to 5 ("All of the time"). The sum of the five items ranges from 0 to 25 and is multiplied by 4 to give a score from 0 to 100. In clinical use, a score of 50 or below indicates low wellbeing.

Keep two points in mind when using the WHO-5 in an employee survey:

• Don't use it for individual screening. The WHO-5 is also used in clinical settings to screen for depression. In an employee survey, the goal is not to identify individuals but to see the overall state of groups. Report results with group indicators such as team averages and "the share of people scoring 50 or below."
• Use a validated translation for other languages. If you run the survey in several languages, use official validated versions where they exist and note any of your own translations in the report.

Sample questions by dimension

The statements below are written to be answered on a 5-point Likert scale ("Strongly disagree" – "Strongly agree"). All are positively worded, which makes it easy to report results as a favorable score.

Workload and pace

• My workload can be completed within normal working hours.
• I can take a break during the day when I need one.
• I can take my annual leave without worrying that my work will suffer.
• I am not expected to answer emails and messages outside working hours.
• My priorities are clear, so I can use my time effectively.

Mental and emotional wellbeing

• I feel I can manage the stress related to my work.
• My work does not drain me emotionally.
• When I am struggling, I can talk about it with my team or my manager.
• When I am struggling, I know how to access the support the company offers (for example, counseling).

If you want to measure emotional exhaustion in more detail, see our article on the Maslach Burnout Inventory.

Physical wellbeing

• The pace of work allows me to sleep and rest enough.
• My work environment (ergonomics, temperature, light, noise) does not harm my health.
• I believe the necessary occupational safety measures are in place.
• At the end of my workday, I have enough energy left to feel ready for the next day.

Social wellbeing and belonging

• I feel I belong in my team.
• There is someone at work I can trust and talk to when I am struggling.
• I can stay connected with my team on the days I work remotely.
• In my team, we make time to help each other.

Financial wellbeing

• My pay is enough to cover my basic needs.
• My financial worries do not affect my ability to focus on my work.
• The benefits the company offers make a real contribution to my budget.

Financial wellbeing is usually the lowest-scoring dimension in periods of high inflation. Before asking these questions, think about how you will respond to the results: even if pay policy cannot change, steps such as financial literacy support, more flexible benefits or open communication are still possible.

Manager and organizational support

• My manager cares about my wellbeing.
• When I raise concerns about my workload, my manager does something about it.
• I am aware of the wellbeing programs the company offers.
• What our company says about wellbeing is consistent with what it does.

Open-ended questions

One or two open-ended questions help you understand the reasons behind the scores:

• What affects your wellbeing at work most negatively?
• What is the most important thing our company could do to support your wellbeing?

For how to write and analyze open-ended questions, see our article on open-ended employee survey questions.

What not to ask

• Diagnoses, illnesses, medication or treatment: Health data is special category personal data under data protection laws and is not the subject of an employee survey.
• Details of private life: Questions about family situation, relationships or amount of debt both damage trust and produce no information the organization can act on.
• Topics the organization can do nothing about: A question whose answer you will know but not act on reinforces the perception that "They asked, but nothing happened."

How should you run the survey?

A separate survey or a module in the engagement survey?

Both approaches work:

• Adding it as a module to the engagement survey: Adding the WHO-5 and 4–8 wellbeing questions lets you see the relationship between wellbeing and engagement in the same data. It also reduces survey fatigue.
• Running a separate wellbeing survey: If wellbeing is a priority for the organization, or you want to understand the impact of a particular period (restructuring, a peak season, a crisis such as an earthquake), a separate survey of 20–30 questions gives deeper insight.

When deciding on the total number of questions, the criteria in our article on how many questions an employee survey should have also apply to wellbeing surveys.

Anonymity and trust

Wellbeing questions are the ones employees answer most cautiously. Saying "I'm exhausted" or "I have financial worries" carries a risk of looking weak for many employees. That is why you should:

• Make the survey anonymous and say so clearly in the invitation.
• Report results only for groups that meet the minimum group size (usually at least 5–10 people).
• Keep demographic breakdowns limited; in small teams, even a few breakdowns can make individuals identifiable.

For details, see our article on anonymity in employee surveys.

Add support resources to the survey

A wellbeing survey can bring difficult feelings to the surface for some employees. Sharing the support resources the organization offers (employee assistance program, counseling line, HR contact channels) at the end of the survey is good practice. It also shows that the organization isn't asking just to collect data.

Frequency

Wellbeing changes faster than engagement. Running one comprehensive measurement a year and adding 4–6 question pulse surveys every 3–4 months lets you see changes in time. Interim measurements are especially valuable during peak seasons, organizational changes or societal crises.

How should you interpret the results?

1. Look at overall wellbeing first, then dig into the causes. The WHO-5 average and the share of low wellbeing show how serious the situation is; the working-condition dimensions show why.
2. Compare groups. Look at breakdowns by function, location, work model (office, hybrid, field), shift and tenure. Protect the anonymity threshold when segmenting. We describe what to keep in mind when surveying blue-collar employees in our article on how to survey blue-collar employees.
3. Find the dimension most strongly related to wellbeing. You can see what affects wellbeing most with key driver analysis. In most organizations, workload and manager support stand out.
4. Read it together with engagement. Groups with high engagement but low wellbeing are the most at risk of burnout. Groups low on both carry attrition risk.
5. Read the comments. Open-ended answers reveal the concrete reason behind a general heading like "workload": back-to-back meetings, understaffing, messages arriving at night.

What should you do with the results?

The most common mistake with wellbeing survey results is trying to solve every problem with a personal program. Offering a meditation app where employees say "my workload is too high" damages trust instead of building it. Look at the work itself first:

• Workload and pace: Review staffing, priorities and meeting load. Meeting-free time blocks, rules for after-hours communication and tracking leave usage are concrete steps.
• Manager support: Help managers notice early signs of strain in their teams and talk about wellbeing. Teams with low wellbeing often have low psychological safety too; we cover this in our article on the psychological safety survey.
• Social wellbeing: In hybrid teams, shared office days, a buddy program for new hires and team rituals strengthen belonging. For details, see our article on how to measure engagement in hybrid and remote employees.
• Support programs: Personal support such as counseling is valuable but not enough on its own. If awareness is low, strengthen communication first.

Finally, share the results with employees and say clearly what steps you will take. Asking about something as personal as wellbeing and then staying silent directly reduces participation and honesty in the next survey. For how to share results, see our article on sharing employee survey results with employees.

Common mistakes

• Confusing wellbeing with satisfaction: "I am satisfied with the benefits" does not measure wellbeing.
• Asking only about the individual's state: A survey that doesn't ask about working conditions doesn't show the source of the problem and puts the responsibility on the employee.
• Using the WHO-5 for individual screening: An employee survey is not a clinical tool; results should be used only at group level.
• Weakening anonymity: Opening reports for small groups means losing the most honest answers on the most sensitive questions.
• Asking financial questions and leaving them unanswered: Asking about a topic the organization can say nothing about creates expectations and then disappointment.
• Only adding programs: If the root cause is workload or manager behavior, a new wellbeing program won't solve it.

In short, a good wellbeing survey doesn't stop at asking employees "How are you?"; it also asks how their work is affecting them. When it is done with the right dimensions, with anonymity protected and followed by steps that touch the work itself, it helps the organization prevent both burnout and resignations early.

Frequently asked questions