The Value of Wellness in the Workplace ― A Perspective of the Employee-organisation Relationship in the South African Labour Market

This book examines the links between employee-organisation relationships, work wellness and the impact thereof on the labour market from a South African perspective. By employing this focus, the book explains the role of the employment relationship and the psychological contract in improving work wellness. To do so, it reviews the establishment and management of contracts in the context of labour relations at South African organisations. The studies presented focus on a range of topics, from individual wellness, the employment relationship and psychological contract, to relational wellness, the broader labour approach, and industrial action. The book presents a structural framework from an individual and labour relational perspective that links the employee-organisation relationship with wellness and its economic value, making it of interest to general and financial managers seeking to better grasp the link between work wellness and its financial implications.

Bennie Linde is an associate professor at the North-West University in South Africa. He teaches labour relations management at the School of Human Resource Sciences at this university – third and fourth year – and is also a member of the WorkWell Research Unit for Economic and Management Sciences where he supervise master and PhD students. Bennie started his career as a labour relations practitioner in 1994 when he was a labour inspector for the Department of Labour in Potchefstroom. In this position he acquired structured skills and development training, with practitioner exposure in labour relations. Bennie practiced labour relations privately from 1996 in the Gauteng province, where he focused on the development of labour relations policies and practices for employers. In 2001 he entered the academic world as a lecturer in labour relations at the, then, Potchefstroom University (now the North-West University). After the successful completion of his BComm Honours and MComm in Labour Relations, he defended his PhD (Organisation Behaviour) at the Tilburg University (the Netherlands) on 29 June 2007, under the academic supervision of Rene Schalk. Bennie’s research focuses on relational wellbeing in the working environment and publishes mainly about psychological contracts and the link of unbalanced contracts on worker wellbeing and organisational success. Bennie also acts as the program leader of research in the School of Human Resource Sciences of the North-West University. He is the subeditor for the human resource management division of the South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences and acts as reviewer for various South African and international journals.