This unit highlights the importance of wellbeing in the contemporary workplace to employer and employee outcomes. It provides learners with a comprehensive knowledge of the links between work, health and wellbeing, and an understanding of the social responsibilities of organisations, based on key theories in this area. The unit develops a critical understanding of how wellbeing initiatives can be created, supported, and integrated within people practices for strategic benefit and supports learners to engage with key critiques of the wellbeing agenda.
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Your 7OS06 assignment questions will closely follow these assessment criteria. Here's what the marker is looking for in each one.
Cover key theories such as engagement and burnout, positive psychology, corporate culture, person-environment (P-E) fit, psychological contract, work-life balance, and cybernetic theory of stress. Discuss effective management of individual factors — personality types (Type A and B), hardiness, resilience, and locus of control. Cover definitions of wellbeing and its key domains, including physical, mental, and social aspects and their interactions with the workplace. The marker expects critical evaluation — acknowledge that definitions vary and are contested, and assess the explanatory power of different theories.
Cover why wellbeing matters for individuals and organisations in relation to efficiency and productivity. Discuss the business case for wellbeing — days lost to workplace stress, mental health problems, lack of work-life balance, long-hours culture, and the position of contractors, temporary staff, and gig economy workers. Cover how wellbeing leads to better employee morale, engagement, a healthier and more inclusive culture, and lower absence rates. The marker expects evaluation — weigh up the evidence and make a judgement about the strength of the case.
Cover the legal duty of care and minimum requirements (Health and Safety Executive requirements), as well as issues of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate reputation impacting on recruitment, retention, and brand image. Discuss business ethics, stakeholder interests, and competitive/strategic advantage. The marker expects examination of both the mandatory and voluntary dimensions of organisational responsibility for wellbeing.
Cover factors such as stress, shift work, social support, sleep, change, workload, job demands, resources, job security, culture, control, commitment, work relationships, and bullying. Include the demand-resources model. Also cover factors outside of work, such as care responsibilities and financial situations. The marker expects a comprehensive examination that considers both workplace and non-workplace factors and their interaction.
Cover how poor wellbeing impacts both organisations and individuals — turnover, absenteeism, presenteeism, leaveism, mental health, and productivity. Reference the CIPD wellbeing report findings. The marker expects critical evaluation — not just a list of negative outcomes, but an assessment of the evidence linking wellbeing failures to measurable organisational consequences and the mechanisms through which this occurs.
Cover the role of people practices in integrating wellbeing with diversity and inclusion, organisation design and development, culture, resourcing, L&D, reward, engagement, employer branding, and employment relations. Discuss the role of technology in promoting or undermining wellbeing. The marker expects evaluation of how effectively organisations integrate wellbeing across all people management activities rather than treating it as a standalone initiative.
Cover specific initiatives — occupational health, sickness absence management, long-term health condition management, health and safety risk assessments, employee assistance programmes, financial initiatives, mindfulness, and health checks. Discuss the promotion and evaluation of wellbeing initiatives and whether the workplace is an appropriate setting for such interventions. The marker expects analysis of what actually works, not just a catalogue of available interventions.
Cover creating an evidence-based approach to wellbeing using tools, models, and operating context. Explore factors such as current workplace issues, job type, health issues, organisation size, and structure. The marker expects evaluation of the quality and practical utility of different assessment tools — are they measuring the right things, and do they generate actionable insights?
Cover key domains of wellbeing strategies and their links to organisational strategy, including the CIPD wellbeing pyramid model and links to engagement, culture, leadership, and people management. Emphasise that wellbeing is not an add-on or nice-to-have but a strategic act. The marker expects critical evaluation — assess whether wellbeing strategies genuinely achieve strategic integration or whether they remain peripheral in many organisations.
Cover links between wellbeing and employee outcomes — commitment, satisfaction, engagement, identification with the organisation — plus the intrinsic value of wellbeing itself. Cover links between wellbeing and employer outcomes — improved performance and productivity, retention, employer branding, lower costs through fewer accidents, lower labour turnover, more creative thinking, and lower levels of conflict. The marker expects analysis that connects strategy to measurable outcomes with evidence.
Cover models of systems thinking, organisation design and structure, strategy, work design, skills, culture, processes, and management style. The marker expects a discussion that acknowledges wellbeing is shaped by the whole organisational system, not just individual interventions. Explain how systemic changes — redesigning work, changing management behaviours, restructuring workloads — can have a more lasting impact than standalone wellbeing programmes.
Cover culture and control — for example, leadership strongly encouraging athletic pursuits among employees and the effects on non-conforming or different bodies (disabled, maternal). Discuss the moralising of wellness at work — the idea that if you don't engage with wellness you are a 'bad' person — the extrovert as a model of wellbeing, and the question of how we know what 'positive' is. The marker expects critical analysis that challenges assumptions about wellbeing and considers whose interests wellbeing agendas serve.
Cover how promoting gym memberships, healthy eating, and similar initiatives can frame wellbeing as the responsibility of the individual rather than the organisation. Discuss how to persuade organisations to take more responsibility for monitoring workload, bullying, and other systemic factors. The marker expects a nuanced discussion that critiques the individualisation of wellbeing without dismissing the value of individual-level support entirely.
Cover the role of people management professionals in supporting sustainable wellbeing policies, respect for individual boundaries, and organisational issues concerning absenteeism, presenteeism, performance, efficiency, and corporate image. The marker expects evaluation of how the people function can be a genuine driver of wellbeing culture change rather than simply administering wellbeing programmes.
Cover how line managers can address issues of workload, work environment, bullying, diversity, and health. Discuss self-awareness exercises and L&D to improve line manager understanding, issues of implementation alongside other line manager goals (team performance, quality, costs), and the role of wellbeing champions in promoting organisational as well as individual responsibility. The marker expects practical discussion that acknowledges the pivotal but challenging role of line managers in making wellbeing real on the ground.
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