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The purpose of this paper is to compare factor analysis (FA) with an alternative approach known as impact analysis (IA) in determining items for a questionnaire to measure employee wellbeing.

FA and IA were conducted on a raw data set drawn from an earlier study to develop an assessment that measures the impact of work on employee wellbeing. IA is an accepted clinical methodology used to verify items in the development of health‐related quality of life instruments that evaluate patient wellbeing in clinical trials.

FA and IA gave rise to considerably different assessments. IA resulted in a 51‐item scale spread across ten different domains. FA generated an eight‐factor scale with 46 items. In total, 31 variables were common to each version. The additional 20 items using IA included a number of variables that were identified by employees as being important to their wellbeing. The 15 extra items yielded by FA included six variables that were perceived by staff to be relatively unimportant. Five factors were fairly consistent with five of the domains. Both scales showed adequate internal consistency reliability.

The present study suggests an alternative methodology for measuring employee wellbeing. The small number of subjects who participated in the earlier research is a limitation.

The study offers exploratory research into an alternative way to measure wellbeing in the workplace that draws on an accepted clinical methodology already used to assess and evaluate patient wellbeing.

The purpose of this paper is to test the performance of two generic scales designed to evaluate employee well‐being against a new well‐being scale constructed for a specific sector; call centres.

The method to develop the new scale is based on well‐established clinical models used to evaluate the well‐being of patients. Potential variables were confirmed using an item selection method known as impact analysis which places keen emphasis on the frequency and importance of variables according to employees themselves.

From a potential pool of 102 items, impact analysis confirmed 43 variables most strongly associated with adverse well‐being. These were distributed across eight separate dimensions. Content validity and internal reliability were satisfactory. The results showed that existing scales were substantially insensitive to aspects of work that were perceived to be important and troubling to call centre employees and could therefore provide incomplete accounts of employee well‐being.

Confirmation of the assessment's measurement properties will be the subject of future studies. The generalisability of the findings to other call centres will also be investigated.

For employers and researchers wishing to evaluate and act on well‐being within a particular sector, this approach to measurement may offer a practical, parsimonious alternative to existing, generic options. Impact analysis also addresses criticisms of factor analysis when used in well‐being scale construction.

The findings suggest support for a new approach to measuring the well‐being of sector specific workers that is based on clinical evaluation practices.