MM5271 Wellbeing at Work
The Complete Study & Assessment Guide · Sem 1 2026/27MM5271 Overview
- The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
- Semester 1, 2026/27
- Postgraduate subject
- Management
- Journals, participation and project
What this subject is actually asking you to do
Wellbeing at Work is a postgraduate subject in the Department of Management and Marketing, taught as a highly interactive class across ten topics.
- Assessed by Two reflection journals worth 20% each, individual participation worth 25% and a ten-page individual project worth 35%.
- The skill being graded Insight: connecting a named concept to a specific experience and showing what changed because of it.
- Hardest step Persuading an organisation, not just diagnosing it: the project must say how you would convince the organisation to adopt the proposal.
- Where to confirm Deadlines and submission points are controlled by the subject site, which dates both journals differently from the syllabus.
How MM5271 is assessed
| Component | Weight | Format |
|---|---|---|
| Personal Reflection Journals | 40% | Two journals of under two single-spaced pages, 20% each, on any two topics after the first |
| Individual Participation | 25% | Interactive in-class activities and discussion, digitally recorded |
| Individual Project | 35% | Ten-page double-spaced paper on one workplace wellbeing issue, with at least ten research references |
The subject syllabus lists these three components and they total 100%; the first lecture slide shows the same split. Each reflection journal carries 20% and covers any topic after the first. The syllabus sets each journal due within a week of the lesson it reflects on and states that late journals will not be considered, while the subject site currently dates both journal submission points 3 December at 18:30, so confirm which deadline applies. The project paper is due 6 December 2026 at 23:59, an outline by email is recommended on or before 8 November 2026, and a late paper loses one sub-grade per day. The site page for the project shows it as a 35-point item but also carries a line saying it is excluded from the final grade calculation; this guide follows the syllabus weight, and you should confirm the grade book setting on the subject site.
Assessment structure
Segment widths reproduce the published percentage weights and total 100%.
Current MM5271 dates
| Date | Item | Control |
|---|---|---|
| 8 November 2026 | Individual project outline (recommended) | The syllabus recommends emailing an outline of the paper on or before this date. |
| 3 December 2026 | Personal Reflection 1 and 2 submission points | Shown on the subject site at 18:30; the syllabus instead sets each journal within a week of the lesson it reflects on. |
| 6 December 2026 | Individual Project | Due 23:59, stated in the syllabus and on the subject site. |
Dates are as published in the subject syllabus and the assignment pages on the subject site for this offering. Confirm exact deadlines and submission settings in the live LMS.
What MM5271 covers
Ten chapters follow the published reading list from the myths of the great workplace through meaning, motivation, attention, stress and burnout, emotions, self-compassion and inclusion to incivility, wellness programmes and flourishing.
Workplace Wellbeing, Its Myths and Its Business Case
Wellbeing intelligence at self, team and organisation levels · Satisfaction and performance correlations · Five myths of the great workplace · Stress, anxiety and sick daysWhat the subject means by wellbeing at work
Wellbeing here is not a passing good mood.
- Why wellbeing complements performance management
- Wellbeing versus emotion and emotional intelligence
- Wellbeing intelligence at self, team and organisation levels
- Telling stress, anxiety and burnout apart
- Correlations between employee satisfaction and firm performance
- Rising sick days and the cost of poor mental health
Money, Meaning and Job Crafting
Income and two kinds of wellbeing · Four sources of meaningful work · Task, relational and cognitive crafting · Quiet quitting and after-hours limitsWhy a good salary does not guarantee good days
Kahneman and Deaton drew on more than 450,000 answers to a daily Gallup survey to separate two kinds of wellbeing that are usually lumped together.
- Emotional wellbeing versus life evaluation
- Income satiation of daily emotion near $75,000 a year
- Job disengagement and the golden handcuff
- Four sources of meaningful work
- Four barriers to conversations about meaning
- Task, relational and cognitive job crafting
Incentives, Motives and the Growth Mindset
Personal bonuses and perceived sincerity · Matching incentives as the boundary · Fixed, growth and false growth mindsets · Rewarding learning over effortWhat this topic asks about rewards and development
The syllabus places two concerns together here: whether performance measures and incentives actually improve performance, and how people grow at work. Two short readings carry the argument.
- How incentives relate to actual performance
- Personal rewards and perceived sincerity in fund-raising
- Matching incentives as a boundary condition
- Crowding out versus the sincerity channel
- Fixed, growth and false growth mindsets
- Rewarding learning and progress rather than effort alone
Attention, Information Overload and Boundaries
Cost of task switching · Focus, filter and forget · Interrupting a colleague well · Negotiating and resetting boundariesWhy attention belongs in a wellbeing course
Wellbeing at work is often discussed as workload or pay, yet much daily strain comes from how attention is carved up.
- Costs of multitasking for time, errors and creativity
- Stress and the addictive side of constant connectivity
- Focusing, filtering and forgetting as coping habits
- Why teams must agree attention norms together
- When interruptions are experienced positively
- A decision sequence for interrupting a colleague
Stress, Recovery, Sleep and Burnout
Stress curve and recovery habits · Stress Risk Thermometer and its costs · Sleep, leadership and nap rooms · Six areas of worklife and burnoutStress is meant to switch off
The readings for this topic begin by rejecting the idea that stress is simply bad.
- Why a healthy stress response depends on the recovery phase
- Chronic stress, allostatic load and the warning signs
- Optimal stress and the supercompensation analogy
- Daily habits that alternate focus and recovery
- Stress as a measurable business risk and the three stress zones
- How lost sleep impairs judgement and leadership behaviour
Emotions and Difficult Conversations at Work
Self-immersed versus self-distanced reflection · Recounting versus reconstruing · Distancing is not avoidance · Preparing a difficult conversationWhy emotions at work deserve their own topic
Workplaces generate feelings that rarely get discussed openly: embarrassment after public criticism, resentment over a decision taken without you, anxiety before a talk you would rather avoid.
- Emotions in the workplace and why they linger
- Rumination versus adaptive self-reflection
- Self-immersed and self-distanced perspectives
- Recounting versus reconstruing an upsetting event
- Why self-distancing is not avoidance
- Reciprocated hostility and problem solving in conflict
Perfectionism, Self-Compassion and Resilience
Three components and their opposites · Self-compassion versus self-esteem · Mastery and avoidance goals · Coping after a failureTwo unhelpful reflexes after a setback
When a sales quarter disappoints or a promotion goes elsewhere, people tend to do one of two things. Some protect themselves by blaming colleagues or circumstances; others punish themselves.
- Defensiveness and self-criticism as the two common reactions to setbacks
- The three components of self-compassion and their opposites
- Why self-compassion is distinct from self-esteem
- Perfectionism, standards and discriminating wisdom
- Mastery goals, performance goals and fear of failure
- Coping with a failure that has already happened
Inclusion, Empathy and Authenticity at Work
Facades of conformity · Four values of inclusion · Storytelling and perspective-taking · Psychological safety for honest dissentWhy headcount is the wrong measure of inclusion
A workforce can look diverse on paper and still leave many of its members outside the decisions that matter.
- Why a representative team can still exclude people
- Intergroup conflict, in-groups and biased mental models
- The four values of the Values/Principles Model
- Seven guiding principles, from moral case to expanding the boundary
- Storytelling and perspective-taking as routes to empathy
- Facades of conformity and the conditions for authenticity
Incivility, Social Support and Forgiveness
Hidden costs of everyday rudeness · Community as a buffer · Apology before forgiveness · Red flags in a prospective employerWhy rudeness belongs in a wellbeing course
Disrespect at work is usually small: being talked over, left off a thread, answered with sarcasm.
- Everyday incivility and how often employees report it
- Microaggressions as patterns that appear only when counted
- Hidden costs: withdrawn effort, turnover and customer spillover
- Sense of community and social support as a buffer
- How rudeness spreads through teams and leaders
- Apology and forgiveness as the route to repair
Wellness Programmes and Flourishing at Work
I-frame versus S-frame programmes · Carewashing and modifiable health drivers · Concern about happiness and meta-emotions · Generosity and trust in apologyWhy wellness spending has not bought wellbeing
Large employers now routinely fund wellness programmes, and global corporate spending on wellness keeps growing, yet burnout and mental health needs have continued to climb.
- Why wellness spending has not reduced burnout
- Individual-frame versus system-frame interventions
- Carewashing and the perception of lip service
- Six modifiable drivers of holistic health at work
- Metrics, champions and leader training as structural supports
- Aspiring to happiness versus concern about happiness
Its published description starts from a simple observation: people spend a large share of their waking lives at work, so a lack of wellbeing there is associated with serious health risks, while investment in it is related to productivity, engagement, innovation and resilience.
The subject treats wellbeing as a complement to conventional performance management, and its stated objectives are to understand common mental health issues and their link to organisational performance, to consider management solutions that could underpin a positive workplace, and to add a new set of tools for modern pressures of pace, technology and psychological distance.
Every graded component asks you to use these ideas, either on your own working life or on an organisation.
Workplace Wellbeing, Its Myths and Its Business Case
The opening topic separates wellbeing from momentary good mood and sets out the business case, including the correlations the first lecture presents between employee satisfaction and measures of firm performance.
It introduces wellbeing intelligence at the level of the self, the team and the organisation, and works through the myths of the great workplace: that everyone is always happy, that conflict is rare, that mistakes are few, that cultural fit means similarity and that fun perks are what matter.
Money, Meaning and Job Crafting
Income raises how people evaluate their lives but, beyond a point, not how they feel day to day.
The chapter builds on that distinction to discuss disengagement and the golden handcuff, the sources of meaningful work and why managers avoid talking about meaning, and job crafting: reshaping the tasks, relationships and way of thinking about a job from the inside.
Incentives, Motives and the Growth Mindset
A reward can change how an action is read by others, and a study on fund-raising shows personal incentives making an appeal seem less sincere.
The chapter compares that effect with crowding out, then sets fixed, growth and false growth mindsets side by side and asks what it means to reward learning and progress rather than effort alone.
Attention, Information Overload and Boundaries
Switching between tasks costs time and accuracy, and constant connectivity adds stress of its own.
The chapter covers focusing, filtering and forgetting as habits, why a team has to agree its attention norms together, how to interrupt a colleague well, and how to negotiate and reset personal boundaries after a crisis.
Stress, Recovery, Sleep and Burnout
Taught over two weeks, this topic treats stress as a response that is healthy when followed by recovery and harmful when chronic.
It covers stress as a measurable business risk, the effect of lost sleep on judgement and leadership, the debate over workplace napping, and burnout as a mismatch between people and six areas of their working life.
Emotions and Difficult Conversations at Work
Also taught over two weeks, this topic asks why upsetting experiences linger and how to reflect on them without ruminating.
Research on self-distancing shows that looking at an event from a step back tends to produce reconstrual rather than a replay of the hurt, which is useful preparation for a difficult conversation.
Perfectionism, Self-Compassion and Resilience
Self-compassion is defined through three components and their opposites and kept distinct from self-esteem.
The chapter connects it to how people set goals, how they cope with a failure that has already happened, and how high standards can be kept without the self-criticism that often comes with them.
Inclusion, Empathy and Authenticity at Work
A representative team can still exclude people.
The chapter covers intergroup bias, a values-based approach to inclusion, storytelling and perspective-taking as routes to empathy, and the facades of conformity people adopt when authenticity feels unsafe.
Incivility, Social Support and Forgiveness
Everyday rudeness carries hidden costs in withdrawn effort, turnover and customer experience.
The chapter covers microaggressions, how incivility spreads from leaders through teams, community and social support as a buffer, repair through apology and forgiveness, and how to spot a toxic employer before accepting an offer.
Wellness Programmes and Flourishing at Work
Wellness spending has not reliably reduced burnout, and one assigned reading attributes part of the problem to a focus on individual fixes rather than the systems around the employee.
The closing topic sets those frames against each other, looks at the drivers of holistic health, and ends with research on how pursuing happiness too anxiously can backfire.
How to use this guide
Read the chapter for a topic before its class, because participation depends on having thought the concepts through in advance. Work the practice items by writing your own answer first.
Use the practice chapter to plan the individual project from issue to proposal, and the closing chapter for the last checks before any submission.
Evidence and assessment control
Assessment labels, weights and dates follow the published syllabus for this offering and the assignment pages on the subject site.
The syllabus publishes rough grade guidelines for each component and two lateness rules, which this guide reproduces; check the subject site for any further requirement that applies to passing. Teaching explanations, worked examples and practice items are independently authored and are not University assessment material, and any marks shown on them are an AskSia study allocation.
Confirm deadlines and submission settings on the subject site, which currently dates the journals differently from the syllabus.
Worked example · free
Turn a journal audit into a reflection that shows a change
- 2Replace the general mood with a dated, countable observation of your own behaviour.
- 3Name the concept from the topic that explains the pattern, precisely.
- 3Report what you changed, for how long, and what you noticed, including what did not work.
Key terms
- Wellbeing Intelligence
- A learnable set of managerial skills for recognising, diagnosing and improving one's own and other people's wellbeing. It operates at the individual, team and organisational levels.
- Job Crafting
- The physical and cognitive changes an employee makes to the task or relational boundaries of their own job, usually without formal redesign by the organisation.
- Crowding Out
- A process in which an external reward displaces a person's own reason for doing an activity, so that motivation or effort falls once the reward is introduced.
- Information Overload
- A state in which the volume of messages and data reaching a worker exceeds what they can process well, lowering the quality of learning and decisions.
- Optimal Stress
- A level and rhythm of stress that energises performance and growth because it alternates with genuine recovery, rather than being eliminated or endured.
- Self-Immersed Perspective
- A way of recalling and analysing an experience from inside it, seeing events through your own eyes. In the research it is linked with rumination and stronger emotional reactivity.
- Self-Compassion
- An emotional stance toward yourself in failure that combines kindness toward yourself, recognition of common humanity and mindful awareness of painful feelings. It does not depend on rating yourself favourably against others.
- Values/Principles Model
- A framework from Beach and Segars that defines inclusion through four values, representation, participation, application and appreciation, reached through seven guiding principles.
- Workplace Incivility
- Low-intensity disrespectful behaviour at work, such as ignoring, undermining or publicly belittling a colleague. Its harm comes from accumulation rather than from any single act.
MM5271 FAQ
How is the grade made up?
Three components total one hundred per cent: two personal reflection journals worth twenty per cent each, individual participation worth twenty-five per cent and an individual project paper worth thirty-five per cent. The same split appears in the syllabus and on the first lecture slide, and deadlines are managed on the subject site.
Which topics can a reflection journal be about, and when is it due?
Any two topics covered during the semester except the opening one. Each journal is under two single-spaced pages, briefly audits your own wellbeing and then reflects on how the learning helps you improve it. The syllabus says each is due within a week of the lesson it reflects on and that late journals are not considered; the subject site dates both submission points 3 December, so confirm which deadline governs.
What does the individual project paper have to cover?
One specific workplace wellbeing issue, the problems behind it, how you would suggest the organisation tackle it and how you would convince the organisation to adopt the proposal. It runs to ten double-spaced pages in Times New Roman excluding tables, figures and references, needs at least ten research references in a consistent academic style, and is graded on application of concepts, logic, originality and structure.
How is participation assessed?
The class is designed to be highly interactive and in-class participation is digitally recorded. The published guideline grades it in bands, from insightful, critical contributions at the top to passive participation, unexcused absence or disruption near the bottom. Preparing the reading or pre-assigned exercise before each class and reflecting on it afterwards is what the syllabus itself recommends.
What happens if written work is submitted late?
The two rules differ. A reflection journal submitted late will not be considered, on the stated reasoning that there are many chances to make the next deadline. The project paper is accepted late but loses one sub-grade, for example from B- to C+, for each day it is late. Only electronic copies submitted through the drop box are accepted.
Can I use generative AI for the written work?
Yes, within stated limits. The subject encourages it for generating ideas for projects, but any assignment where it was used must carry the declaration footnote given in the syllabus, describing how it was used, and you remain responsible for factual accuracy and ethical concerns. Writing an assignment in another language and translating it directly with such a tool is not allowed.
What topics does the subject cover?
Ten topics: the myths of the great workplace, money and meaning at work with job crafting, incentives and the growth mindset, attention and boundaries, stress, recovery and burnout over two weeks, emotions and difficult conversations over two weeks, perfectionism and self-compassion, inclusion and authenticity, incivility and social support, and wellness programmes and flourishing.
Questions students ask in each MM5271 chapter
- Does employee happiness actually improve company performance?
- The evidence shows association rather than proof of cause. A meta-analysis pooled by McKinsey finds satisfaction correlated with customer satisfaction, lower turnover, profitability and productivity, and firms on best-employer lists earned higher risk-adjusted shareholder returns. Those links are modest in size, so a strong argument uses them to justify attention while measuring whether a particular intervention works in its own setting. Chapter 01 · Workplace Wellbeing, Its Myths and Its Business Case
- Does earning more money make you happier at work?
- It depends which kind of happiness you mean. In a large US study, higher household income went with a better overall judgement of life at every level observed, but the moods people felt day to day stopped improving at roughly $75,000 a year. Beyond that point, sociability, health and caring responsibilities mattered far more for how a day actually felt, so a raise helps security and self-assessment more than the everyday experience of work. Chapter 02 · Money, Meaning and Job Crafting
- Do financial incentives always improve employee performance?
- No. Rewards can raise participation, but research on paid charity advocates found that a personal bonus reduced the money their appeals attracted, because audiences read them as less genuine. The effect disappeared when the same bonus went to the charity. Whether pay helps depends on whether the job relies on being trusted, and on whether the reward suggests selfish motives to the people watching. Chapter 03 · Incentives, Motives and the Growth Mindset
- Does multitasking actually make you less productive?
- Yes, according to the evidence Dean and Webb summarise. Working on tasks in parallel took people up to 30 percent longer and doubled their errors compared with doing them one after another. Each switch forces the brain to drop one set of rules and load another, and frequent switchers are slower at it. Quick replies feel like progress, yet they rarely advance the hardest problems and can be procrastination in disguise. Chapter 04 · Attention, Information Overload and Boundaries
- Is all stress at work harmful?
- No. A short burst of stress hormones sharpens attention and gives the body energy to meet a challenge, and once the pressure lifts a calming response lets reserves recover. Harm comes from repetition without that calming phase, which turns an acute response into a chronic state. The practical question for any employee or manager is therefore how often recovery actually happens, not whether pressure exists at all. Chapter 05 · Stress, Recovery, Sleep and Burnout
- How do I stop replaying an argument with my boss in my head?
- Rather than trying to stop thinking, change where you think from. Picture the exchange as an outside observer who can see you in the room, then ask what the episode means rather than retelling each line. Research on self-distancing found this observer view went with lower emotional reactivity and fewer unwanted thoughts weeks later. If you catch yourself rehearsing exact words again, step back out. Chapter 06 · Emotions and Difficult Conversations at Work
- Does self-compassion mean letting yourself off the hook for mistakes?
- No. The research distinguishes judging an action from condemning the person. A self-compassionate employee can still see clearly that a report was wrong and hold high standards for the next one. What changes is that the error is not taken as proof of personal worthlessness, which is why studies find more motivation to repair harm and improve, not less. Complacency comes from overrating yourself, a separate problem. Chapter 07 · Perfectionism, Self-Compassion and Resilience
- What is a facade of conformity at work?
- It is the habit of looking agreeable in public while holding a different view in private. Employees adopt it when dissent has been punished, when rewards favour the fluent majority, or when they feel like outsiders. Meetings look harmonious, yet useful warnings travel through side chats instead of reaching the decision, so errors and quiet resignations follow. Leaders reduce it by sharing their own stories first and by making candour safe rather than compulsory. Chapter 08 · Inclusion, Empathy and Authenticity at Work
- How common is rudeness at work?
- Very common, and rising in the long-running surveys by Christine Porath. By 2016 a clear majority of respondents said a colleague treated them rudely at least monthly. Causes she suggests include isolation from remote working, cultural friction from globalisation, and digital messages that make put-downs easy and tone easy to misread. Because each episode is minor, organisations tend to underestimate how widespread it is until staff are asked directly. Chapter 09 · Incivility, Social Support and Forgiveness
- Why don't workplace wellness programmes work?
- Many of them aim at the wrong level. Apps, helplines and resilience courses ask staff to cope better while heavy workloads, unclear roles or toxic behaviour stay in place. Take-up is often low, measured benefits are small, and leaders seldom follow outcomes. Programmes tend to do better when a structural change, such as redesigned workloads or trained managers, comes first and personal support is added around it. Chapter 10 · Wellness Programmes and Flourishing at Work
How to prepare for the assessments
Keep a two-line wellbeing log from the first class: what drained you each day and what restored you. When a topic lands, read your log against its concepts before writing a journal, and write the change you will test before the class ends, so that the journal can report what happened.
For the project, start a shortlist of organisational problems in week two and add the reading that explains each one, so that by November you are choosing between researched issues rather than searching for one.
Your AI Management tutor for MM5271
Stuck on a hard MM5271 question? Sia is AskSia’s AI Management tutor — ask any MM5271 Wellbeing at Work question and get a clear, step-by-step explanation grounded in how the course is actually taught and assessed. Read this whole study guide free, then take your hardest questions to Sia.
