WORKPLACE WELL-BEING
Dr Sherry Aw is the lead for research projects in this stream. Work constitutes about a third or more of our adult lives and what happens at work therefore has a substantial impact on individual well-being. The research stream on workplace well-being focuses on the factors that determine well-being both within the workplace as well as more generally: we focus on how work events and characteristics enable flourishing (or conversely lead to burnout), build resilience against stress and burnout, and how the spheres of work and personal lives interact to impact global well-being.
CURRENT PROJECTS
Remote worker well-being
Workspaces are increasingly shifting toward hybridization and flexi-work arrangements. This research focus examines how such novel work arrangements (e.g., increased autonomy, blurred boundaries), influence various domains of employee workplace behaviours well-being – social integration, job satisfaction, and work-family balance.
Teacher well-being and burnout: Emotional and interpersonal stress and empathy
An educator’s job is highly interpersonal and emotionally-driven – in the course of their work, teachers are required to devote their emotional energies toward caring for and developing their students, and also navigating relationships with coworkers and supervisors. However, the relationship between these socio-emotional job demands, and teacher well-being outcomes have not been explored in sufficient depth. Several studies in this space seek to investigate spillover effects between coworker and student interactions, as well as the emotional and empathic demands on teacher well-being.
Staying Motivated by Anchoring on Values: A Mixed Methods Study on the Workplace Well-being and Addiction Beliefs of Substance Use Professionals in Singapore
Professionals in Western countries providing substance use treatment services report poor workplace well-being (Murphy & Kruis, 2023), but there is no such research in Singapore where the rehabilitation of substance users occurs in the penal system. This project seeks to understand the workplace well-being of substance use professionals in Singapore and how their addiction beliefs impact their well-being.