Modelling Employee Well-Being: A Quantitative Comparison of the Hedonic, Eudaimonic, Social, JD-R, and PERMA Frameworks in Occupational Settings

Workplace well-being has gained momentum in contemporary occupational research for its effect on employee engagement, mental health, and organizational productivity. While multiple theoretical frameworks may be found in the literature, there is a dearth of comparative analyses of these in terms of their ability to predict occupational outcomes. This study attempts to assess five prominent models of well-being: Hedonic, Eudaimonic, Social Well-Being, the JD-R Theory, and PERMA-based accomplishments with respect to their relative predictive strengths for employee engagement, stress reduction, and satisfaction at work. A quantitative comparative research design was adopted, using secondary datasets from the Digital Well-being Lab, Swinburne University (2023), WHO Workplace Well-being Report (2024), Ministry of Manpower, Singapore (2024), and Department of Statistics Malaysia (2024). A total of 250 employees participated in the study: 125 employees from Singapore and 125 from Johor, Malaysia, belonging to four major sectors of technology, finance, education, and healthcare. Stratified sampling was done in such a way that all regions and industries had proportional representation. Statistical techniques including regression analysis, ANOVA, and Pearson correlation were employed to assess the influence of each model on specific workplace well-being indicators. The findings revealed that the PERMA model and JD- R theory consistently demonstrated the strongest predictive power for positive outcomes such as employee satisfaction, engagement, and resilience. In contrast, the hedonic model showed limited utility beyond short-term stress relief, lacking sustained predictive effectiveness. These results contribute both theoretically and practically by offering empirical evidence that can guide human resource managers, safety practitioners, and corporate wellness policymakers in the development and deployment of targeted well-being interventions across industries.