Workplace Emotions & Wellbeing Through Change: ECD Research with Wharton Business School

In 2024, a leading public organisation in New Zealand faced a significant change process affecting 4,000 employees. Understanding that emotions play a critical role during periods of transformation, one of their teams turned to The Emotional Culture Deck Change Readiness Programme to guide them through the journey. Partnering with Professor Michael Parke from Wharton Business School, we set out to measure how The Emotional Culture Deck impacted employee engagement, psychological safety, and overall wellbeing throughout the process.

The outcomes of this intervention—our ECD Change Readiness Programme—highlight the strategic value and personal importance of supporting teams in recognising and managing both individual and collective emotions during change.

Below, we’ve outlined the key results and insights, along with a concise one-page summary of our findings.

ECD Intervention Results Overview

We conducted a field intervention to examine how The ECD workshop impacts key employee engagement and collaboration indicators.

Pre and post-testing revealed that The ECD intervention helped employees feel more comfortable expressing both positive and negative emotions related to work issues or ideas.

There was increased employee engagement, greater perceived support from managers, and more employees speaking up about problems. These findings suggest The ECD intervention can be effective at enhancing workplace emotional culture and fostering open communication and collaboration within teams.

The key findings and impact include:

• Increased Engagement: Employee engagement rose by 7.3%, highlighting a more motivated and involved team.

• Enhanced Emotional Awareness: Significant improvements in both positive (20.7%) and negative (16.4%) emotion labelling, showing better emotional intelligence and improved ability to identify and address issues, contributing to emotional resilience.

• Stronger Leader Support: The programme boosted emotional support from leaders by 10.3%, enhancing the leader-employee relationship. This indicates that team members feel more supported emotionally by their leaders and peers.

• Improved Psychological Safety: 1.6% increase in psychological safety indicates a more open and risk tolerant work environment.

• Better Workload Management: Job demands dropped by 6%, reflecting better workload balance and reduced stress.

The results of our first study illustrates the game-changing potential of integrating emotional culture into your change management practices. By addressing emotions intentionally, this government agency not only navigated the immediate challenges of consultation but also strengthened its foundation for future resilience. 

Organisations that recognise and shape emotions during change by embracing emotional strategy can expect to unlock higher engagement, stronger leadership trust, and more collaborative, high-performing teams.