Development and psychometric validation of the career and employee wellness assessment: Evidence from a South African open-distance university

Abstract

Orientation: Employee and career well-being contribute to organisational performance and reflect an ethical commitment to sustainable and fair treatment of employees. In digitally mediated environments such as open distance learning (ODL), technological demands influence well-being, yet existing measurement approaches often assess these dimensions separately.
Research purpose: This study aimed to develop and validate the career and employee wellness assessment (CEWA), a comprehensive tool designed to assess six core dimensions of employee and career wellness in an academic and digitally integrated context.
Motivation for the study: As academic environments become increasingly digital and complex, institutions require a theory-informed tool to assess career and employee wellness, enabling early identification of well-being risks and targeted organisational support interventions.
Research approach/design and method: Career and employee wellness assessment was piloted at the ODL University and later implemented institutionally, with responses from 840 staff members. The newly developed scale measures six dimensions: career satisfaction, holistic wellness, career meaningfulness, digital and career wellness, career embeddedness, and employee relational wellness. Its psychometric properties were assessed using exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and Rasch analysis.
Main findings: Career and employee wellness assessment demonstrated strong internal consistency, construct validity and reliability across all dimensions.
Practical/managerial implications: The instrument provides organisations with structured well-being data to inform targeted employee support and wellness initiatives.
Contribution/value-add: The CEWA contributes to the assessment of employee wellness by combining career, relational and holistic dimensions within a single measure designed for digitally mediated academic work contexts.