The efficacy of employee strengths interventions on desirable workplace outcomes

Recent data suggest that only about one-third of employees thrive at work, while most are disengaged. This lack of employee productivity costs U.S. companies billions of dollars annually. Consequently, there is great interest in workplace interventions designed to increase employee performance and engagement. Strengths interventions are one such approach because there is evidence that when employees can identify, use, and develop their strengths at work, it is associated with a range of desirable outcomes. Still, there is a need for experimental research that facilitates causal analysis and the development of reliable strengths interventions that can be applied in organizations. Two longitudinal studies examined the impact of different strengths interventions. The first study tested a 2-week intervention measuring the impact on strengths use, job performance, and flourishing at work. Only job performance improved significantly over time. The second study deployed a 4-week intervention measuring the impact on strengths use, job performance, organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), and engagement, with significant increases in all variables over time. Post hoc analyses indicated that results might have been influenced by the extent to which strengths use changed. If strengths use declined, there were no significant outcomes. However, when strengths use increased, there was a significant improvement in job performance with a large effect size and OCB and engagement with very large effect sizes. These findings suggest strengths interventions can lead to favorable workplace outcomes, though levels of strengths use might impact results. Limitations and future areas of research are discussed.