Briefing | Good Work Index 2025 in Wales

Drivers and outcomes of workplace ill-health

Economic inactivity has increasingly become a focus of public policy in Wales, as policy-makers tackle one of the worst rates among all UK nations and regions. Statistics suggest over 480,000 people in Wales are currently economically inactive, with the most common reason for this being ill-health. While bringing inactive people back into the labour market is an understandable priority, the health and wellbeing of existing workers should also be considered. 

Data from our Good Work Index survey shows that around 63% of Welsh employees rate their mental health as good, with 66% saying the same about their physical health. Just under half (48%) said they experienced a physical health condition over the last year (eg musculoskeletal issues), with around two-fifths (38%) reporting a non-physical health condition (eg depression, anxiety or sleep problems). 

Around a quarter of all employees said that work negatively impacts their mental (23%) or physical (22%) health. This translates to roughly 340,000 employees and highlights how any strategy to tackle economic inactivity needs to be coupled with a focus on those at risk of dropping out of work due to health factors. 

Our UK-wide Good Work Index found that these negative impacts were associated with high workloads, stress levels, exhaustion, and also poor relationships with colleagues. But the impact goes deeper still. Those who reported negative impacts of work on health were also more likely to report lower job satisfaction, poorer performance and a higher likelihood to quit. Ill-health at work should be a policy and organisational priority. 

The Good Work Index included a range of other wellbeing questions, with the Welsh breakdown provided in Figure 1. Of particular interest is the 15% who say they are always or often under excessive pressure (a measure of stress). This is impacted by workloads, but also occupational classes or management levels. 

Figure 1: A mixed picture of wellbeing in Wales 

Availability and impact of flexible working 

One lasting impact of the pandemic has been the change to working patterns. Across all parts of the UK, there have been increases in home and hybrid working, as well as flexible working as a whole, compared to CIPD surveys from before 2020. Wales is no exception, with 45% of all employees saying that they have worked from home a least some of the time, an increase from the 29% recorded in 2020. 

The full breakdown is shown in Figure 2. It highlights that flexible working arrangements are more likely to be unavailable for all bar two types of arrangement, these being reduced hours and flexi-time. This illustrates the considerable gaps in formal provision of flexibility and something that policy-makers have sought to address in recent years with extensions to the right to request flexible working. 

Figure 2: Considerable gaps in the availability of most flexible working arrangements

We know that formal flexible working arrangements are much more common for employees working in the public sector. Some of this is linked to organisational size, with employees who work for SMEs reporting a lower availability of flexible working. However, informal flexibility (without a change in contracts) is much more common in smaller organisations. 76% of employees in micro-businesses say they would find taking a few hours off work to take care of personal matters easy, compared with 66% of large business employees. 

For those without flexible working availability, we asked further what arrangements they would want the most. The highest demand was for the four-day week (49%), compressed hours (24%), and flexi-time (21%). It’s perhaps unsurprising that these options don’t involve a loss of income unlike, for example, reduced hours or job-sharing. 

Finally, the survey looked at the impact of flexible working and found that an overwhelming majority of employees who work flexibly said it had a positive impact on their quality of life (78%). A third (31%) said it also had a positive impact on their career prospects, an increase from 20% recorded in 2022.

Employee voice changes and gaps 

The importance of effective voice channels at work, collective or individual, cannot be understated. The quality and availability varied voice channels are key elements of good work linked to performance. 

On a practitioner level, effective two-way communication drives staff engagement and can support retention if employees feel they can effect change via their managers or representatives. 

On a public policy level, the UK Government is pursuing reforms to trade union legislation, with changes to statutory recognition thresholds or new rights to access workplaces. 

The Good Work Index includes a breakdown of voice channel availability, with the Welsh results summarised in Figure 3. Of particular concern is that a fifth (19%) of all employees say they have no access to any voice channels – something that can easily be rectified at little or no cost. As with the above-mentioned flexible working data, responses differ by organisational size, with up to 45% of employees in micro-businesses reporting no voice channels at work. 

Figure 3: A fifth do not have access to voice channels

Our UK-wide Good Work Index underlines the importance of voice quality. Employees who agree their manager are good at seeking and responding to their views also report markedly better contextual as well as task performance. Manager ratings overall, in line with our previous research, are also linked to performance as well as health and wellbeing outcomes.

Conclusions 

For nearly a decade, the Good Work Index has been providing insight into the inequalities that different employees experience and the trade-offs that they make between aspects of job quality. While we do not have a dedicated Welsh report for 2025, we know that the key drivers of job quality are occupational, industrial and organisational size differences, not geographic. 

A key takeaway from the Welsh data this year is that SME employees tend to have different experiences of work, with fewer formal flexible working opportunities or structured voice channels. There are steps employers can take to improve these, with one of the key enablers being good quality people management. Our evidence shows strong links between management and employee performance. 

We also see a link between management quality and employee wellbeing. With an increased focus on economic inactivity, taking steps to reduce the risk of employees dropping out of the labour market from ill health must be top priority for organisations and policy-makers.