This is the section most vendors do not write. We write it because knowing the limits of an instrument is part of knowing how to use it.
Five limitations
Voluntary participation, and therefore self-selection. Mitigated by monitoring participation as a metric, reporting sample size everywhere and reading silence as signal. Mitigated, not eliminated.
Single-item roots are coarse. By design: the trade is granularity for frequency. Explanatory depth comes from the Scores, not from the roots.
Driver analysis is correlational. Association, not proof of causation. Used to prioritise, and validated through intervention and time-series follow-up.
Self-report throughout. All perception measures share method variance. This is why the model insists on connecting to hard external data â turnover, absenteeism â rather than living in a closed self-report loop.
Benchmarks are secondary. Our own research says relative and longitudinal signals beat absolute levels. We show benchmarks because clients ask for them, but we build the model on trends.
Keep reading
Published research and open data â the evidence we do have.
How the Scores explain the Happiness Index and eNPS â why driver analysis is a prioritised hypothesis.
Participation: why we measure it and how to read silence â how self-selection is mitigated, in detail.References
Abdel-Khalek, A. M. (2006). Measuring happiness with a single-item scale. Social Behavior and Personality, 34(2).
Adams, J. S. (1965). Inequity in social exchange. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 2.
Bakker, A. B., & Demerouti, E. (2007). The Job Demands-Resources model: State of the art. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 22(3).
Berengueres, J., Duran, G., & Castro, D. (2017). Happiness, an inside job? Turnover prediction using employee likeability, engagement and relative happiness. ASONAM '17. DOI: 10.1145/3110025.3110132
Colquitt, J. A. (2001). On the dimensionality of organizational justice. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86(3).
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination in Human Behavior. Plenum.
Demerouti, E., Bakker, A. B., Nachreiner, F., & Schaufeli, W. B. (2001). The Job Demands-Resources model of burnout. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86(3).
Diener, E. (1984). Subjective well-being. Psychological Bulletin, 95(3).
Dirks, K. T., & Ferrin, D. L. (2002). Trust in leadership: Meta-analytic findings. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87(4).
Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2).
Harter, J. K., Schmidt, F. L., & Hayes, T. L. (2002). Business-unit-level relationship between employee satisfaction, employee engagement, and business outcomes: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87(2).
Kahneman, D., Krueger, A. B., Schkade, D., Schwarz, N., & Stone, A. A. (2004). A survey method for characterizing daily life experience: The Day Reconstruction Method. Science, 306.
Kristof, A. L. (1996). Person-organization fit. Personnel Psychology, 49(1).
Morrison, E. W. (2011). Employee voice behavior. Academy of Management Annals, 5(1).
Nishii, L. H. (2013). The benefits of climate for inclusion for gender-diverse groups. Academy of Management Journal, 56(6).
OECD (2013). OECD Guidelines on Measuring Subjective Well-being. OECD Publishing.
Pink, D. H. (2009). Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. Riverhead.
Reichheld, F. F. (2003). The one number you need to grow. Harvard Business Review, 81(12).
Rizzo, J. R., House, R. J., & Lirtzman, S. I. (1970). Role conflict and ambiguity in complex organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly, 15(2).
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55(1).