HRM and well-being in the public sector

The aim of this chapter is to provide a systematic review of the relationship between HRM and well-being in the public-sector context. It is often suggested that, in developed countries, the public sector is the archetypal model employer seeing, besides employee performance, employee well-being as an end in itself. Consequently, one might expect the public sector HRM literature to put more emphasis on high-commitment work systems/practices than on high-performance work systems/practices as the former sees well-being as an end in itself whereas the latter only as a means to an end (i.e. performance). Based on a systematic review of 72 studies, it seems that many studies do consider well-being as an end in itself but, on closer inspection, these studies still mostly focus on well-being as a means to achieve employee performance. We argue that the inclusion of psychological theories could bring greater balance and a more even focus.