The influence of workplace well-being on employer branding, from the covid-19 crisis to the post-crisis period: a longitudinal qualitative study of executives in the moroccan private sector (2021-2025)

Abstract

The Covid-19 crisis brought workplace well-being to the heart of the relationship between employer and employee in the Moroccan private sector. The theoretical convergence between workplace well-being and employer branding is well established in the international literature. It has not, however, been empirically tested in this context, nor examined through a longitudinal design. To address this twofold gap, a narrative literature review provides the theoretical and conceptual grounding that guides the empirical inquiry. The inquiry follows an interpretivist paradigm. It relies on two waves of semi-structured interviews conducted in 2021 and 2025 with 12 professionals from the Moroccan private sector, for a total of 24 interviews. The analysis brings out four structuring themes: consistency between stated promises and actual practices, spatial and temporal flexibility, recognition, and the evolution of expectations toward a protective leadership. It also reveals four patterns of evolution of the bond with the employer: strengthening, stability, deterioration and rupture. Half of the participants experienced a deterioration or rupture trajectory after the crisis. This finding shows that the strength of the bond rests on the continuity of post-crisis efforts, not on the way the crisis itself was managed. The study brings to light the temporal dimension as a structuring variable of the relationship between workplace well-being and employer branding.

JEL Classification : M12, M14, M31, J28, I31, O55

Paper type: Empirical Research