ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Occupational Health and Safety
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1627464
This article is part of the Research TopicWorld Mental Health Day: Mental Health in the WorkplaceView all 30 articles
Enhancing Employee Well-Being Through a Culturally Adapted Training Program: A Mixed-Methods Study in South Africa
Provisionally accepted
- University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa
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Structured, well-being interventions are under-researched in non-Western workplaces. This study evaluates The Good Life (TGL) training program-a participatory, multi-component training intervention-on employee well-being, engagement and stress in South Africa. Employing an exploratory, quasi-experimental, explanatory sequential mixed-methods design, we collected quantitative data from 57 South African participants across three delivery formats (online, two fullday classroom, four half-day classroom) at pre-training and three months post-training using five validated scales (PSS-4, UWES-3, SWLS, FS, WEMWBS-14). No concurrent control group was retained due to attrition and contamination; thus, causal inferences are cautious. Qualitative data were gathered via semi-structured interviews with a purposive subsample of 15 participants to elucidate mechanisms of change. Two full-day workshops led to significant improvements in overall wellbeing and work engagement, whereas the online format produced a significant boost in well-being only. The half-day format showed no statistically significant changes. Qualitative findings highlighted immersive peer interaction, structured reflection and managerial support as core drivers of impact. Immersive, HR-facilitated training shows promise for enhancing well-being and engagement in South African workplaces. Future research should employ randomized controlled designs, larger samples and objective measures (e.g. absenteeism, physiological indicators) to substantiate and extend these preliminary findings.
Keywords: Employee well-being, Mental Health, Human Resource Management, Well-being intervention, Human resource training, cultural adaptation, South Africa
Received: 12 May 2025; Accepted: 01 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Shekhar, Saurombe and Joseph. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Musawenkosi Donia Saurombe, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa
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