Assessing Employees’ Positive Functioning at Work: Adaptation and Validation of the PERMA + 4 Scales into Turkish

Employees’ well-being and psychological functioning in the workplace are crucial factors that influence both their productivity in professional life and their overall well-being in personal life. This study aims to adapt the PERMA + 4 Positive Functioning at Work Scales, which comprehensively and multidimensionally assess individuals’ well-being at work, into Turkish and to examine their psychometric properties. As part of the study, the long-form scale with 29 items and the short-form scale with 9 items were translated and adapted into Turkish. The study sample consisted of 297 individuals employed in various occupations. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed that the long form’s nine-factor (Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, Accomplishment, Health, Mindset, Environment, and Economic Security) and the short form’s unidimensional structure had acceptable levels of model fit. Item response theory-based evaluations of the short form revealed that the items had enough discriminative power, confirming the validity of its unidimensional structure. Internal consistency and test-retest reliability coefficients for both forms of the scale were found to be at acceptable levels. Correlations between the PERMA + 4 Positive Functioning at Work Scales and the PERMA Scale provided evidence of convergent validity. The PERMA + 4 Scales can be applied in scientific studies conducted in Türkiye and could be a useful instrument for figuring out what factors affect employees’ motivation and well-being at work, as well as for organizing and assessing interventions meant to improve workplace well-being and positive functioning. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2025.