The easy answer is that it can’t be measured and that as an organization one shouldn’t put a number on an employee’s well-being. There is much to it as it is, especially from the individual’s perspective, invaluable.

But if one puts a twist to the question and asks how much an organization wants to invest in the employee’s well-being the perspective changes. It allows one to think about well-being not as the state of well-being someone wants to be in, but take it from its many facets.

In a Hintsa whitepaper on quantifying well-being, these facets were brought down to what they called “five perspectives for leaders”.

What it comes down to, is that measuring will invite leaders to think about what it is they are going to measure, how they are going to measure it, and how they can know that they are measuring what they want to measure.

Such thinking allows us to notice and address problems. And addressing problems in turn enables us to measure the effectiveness of this measure.

There are no template solutions, but there are principles that will allow us to develop solutions for own’s own organization.