Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index Now Live in the UK

Gallup and Healthways in January turned on their Well-Being Index in the United Kingdom. With three months of daily surveys now collected, the companies today shared the inaugural findings.

One major finding emerged from the data: Britons' workplaces aren't that great, especially compared with those in the United States.

Thirty-five percent of British employees report good workplaces versus 47% of American workers. Good work environments mean the employees are satisfied with their jobs, get to use their strengths at work, have supervisors that create an open and trusting work environment and who treat them like a partner rather than a boss. That last one is British workers' biggest challenge.

Britons' relatively negative views of their workplaces have consequences for their country's collective productivity, but also for their well-being. British employees who don't describe their work environments according to the above -- they instead work in a subpar workplace -- don't rate their lives as highly, are less happy, and are more stressed and depressed than those who work in the good workplaces.

These findings can inform the direction that two of Prime Minister Cameron's major initiatives should take. Cameron is having the U.K. Office for National Statistics start work on how to increase Britons' well-being and launched a new government taskforce to improve workplace well-being.

While both are aimed at improving Britons' quality of life -- beyond just the financial parts -- the programs also have broader economic and policy implications. Gallup knows that people with higher well-being are more productive and healthier. The new findings also reveal that workplaces are a key place to start changing Britons' well-being for the better.

The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index tracking in the United Kingdom will reveal more insights into Britons' well-being on a regular basis in the weeks, months, and years to come. By surveying at least 1,000 British residents per month on more than 50 individual measures of health and well-being, the Well-Being Index will provide U.K. leaders with a unique and in-depth dataset that they can draw upon for answers to their country's biggest problems.