Workplace Health and Wellbeing (Distance Learning) MSc/PGDip

To effectively manage workplace health and wellbeing we need a shared understanding of these concepts. This module explores the definition and measurement of workplace, health, and wellbeing. Approaches to the identification of new and emerging risks and opportunities are considered alongside strategies for the prioritisation and targeting of workplace health and wellbeing activities.

Work-related stress, depression, or anxiety accounts for half of all work-related ill health and working days lost due to work-related ill health in the UK. Its management is central to the activity of workplace health and wellbeing practitioners.

By the end of this module, you will be able to demonstrate a critical understanding of:

• the scale of work-related stress and the need for its management
• leading theoretical models that provide an explanatory framework for work-related stress
• the presentation and interpretation of data concerning links between psychosocial working conditions and health and wellbeing
• the application of psychological theories of work-related stress to its management
• legislation concerning the management of work-related stress and official guidance to help organisations fulfil their legal duties

Attendance is fundamental to organisational effectiveness. But what is meant by attendance in the contemporary workplace and do our traditional conceptualisations suffice? This module considers sickness absence, presenteeism, and leaveism within the attendance ‘jigsaw’, and explores evidence-based approaches to employee rehabilitation following absence.

The world of work is constantly evolving, as are the risks and opportunities to workforce health and wellbeing. This module considers a range of contemporary issues facing workplace health and wellbeing practitioners and explores the role of theory and scientific evidence in understanding and managing these. The module assessment allows students to focus on a workplace health and wellbeing issue related to their own interests or professional activities.

The development of knowledge and skills relating to research methods and data analysis is central to the Workplace Health and Wellbeing course. This module seeks to foster a community of research practitioners who are able to collect, analyse, interpret, and draw informed conclusions on qualitative and quantitative data in order to make recommendations on actions to protect and promote workers’ health and wellbeing. Teaching on this module recognises that these concepts are, for many, new and no prior knowledge is assumed.

A healthy workforce is a productive workforce, and the workplace provides an ideal context to promote health. This module considers the business case for workplace health promotion, introduces contemporary psychological theories of behaviour change, and explores how these theories provide an understanding of workers’ behaviours and inform the design of interventions to encourage healthy choices.

To gain the MSc in Workplace Health and Wellbeing, you will conduct an applied research project that spans an academic year.

This module provides you with an opportunity to apply the skills and knowledge acquired during the taught part of the course. You will design, conduct, analyse, and write up your research. This has the potential to be published and make a positive impact on workplace health and wellbeing.  Projects cover an enormous range of topics, reflecting students’ interests and professional focus. 

Most students undertake a study in their own place of work or that of a customer, colleague, or family member.  Students without access to an organisation typically use social media contacts to obtain a participant sample or conduct a secondary analysis of publicly available data.

The research project module culminates with an online conference where students present their research findings to one another and the wider MSc Workplace Health and Wellbeing alumni community.