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Tempering Hard Times: Integrating Well-Being Metrics Into Utility Analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 April 2015

Aharon Tziner ,
Erich C. Fein  and
Assa Birati
Aharon Tziner*
Affiliation:
Netanya Academic College
Erich C. Fein
Affiliation:
University of Southern Queensland
Assa Birati
Affiliation:
Bar-Ilan University
*
E-mail: atziner@netanya.ac.il, Address: Schools of Behavioral Sciences and Business Administration, Netanya Academic College, Netanya 4223587, Israel
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Abstract

This article highlights the virtue of integrating well-being metrics (e.g., psychological well-being, perceived meaning) into aspects of utility analysis for the purpose of enhancing human resource management strategies and worker performance. We present the reader with a review of conceptual and practical developments in this field and examples of utility analysis calculations, while we advocate for the necessity of including well-being metrics in utility analysis for the 21st century. The basic thrust of this effort is to encourage the greater employment by managers of quantitative models that allow decision makers to generate all the factors needed to estimate long-term financial gains and/or losses before any intervention strategy is implemented in the workplace. As indicated, the use of quantitative models to estimate the net financial gains of using particular intervention strategies, accompanied with the value estimation of certain types of employee states (e.g., psychological well-being) and worker behaviors (e.g., employee turnover), can ultimately save companies from making gross tactical errors and, more positively, can assist management in promoting the organization's long-term economic goals in conjunction with the enhanced well-being of employees.

Type
Focal Article
Information
Industrial and Organizational Psychology , Volume 7 , Issue 4 , December 2014 , pp. 554 - 568
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology 2014

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