Research paper · RP25

Use Your Strengths, Pooled

Schutte and Malouff’s 2019 meta-analysis found modest gains from signature-strengths programmes. Pooled random-effects estimates remain small: wellbeing g = 0.31 at work and job performance g = 0.28 immediately after the programme. This review updates that picture for working adults. We asked what identify-and-use-strengths programmes produce for wellbeing, engagement and performance, and what an Indian employer can reasonably buy. Searches of PubMed, PsycINFO, Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar, CTRI, ClinicalTrials.gov and OSF, plus the bibliographies of Schutte and Malouff (2019), Ghielen, van Woerkom and Meyers (2018) and Vîrgă and colleagues (2023), identified more than twenty adult controlled trials. The organisational backbone is Vîrgă, Rusu, Pap, Maricuțoiu and Tisu’s pre-registered 2023 meta-analysis of 21 workplace controlled trials. Workplace wellbeing rose by Cohen’s d = 0.31 (95% CI 0.21 to 0.41) at post-test and d = 0.27 at follow-up. General wellbeing rose by d = 0.24 at post-test. Performance rose by d = 0.28 (95% CI 0.11 to 0.45) at post-test; the follow-up interval crossed zero. A 2025 workplace meta-analysis of character-strengths programmes found engagement d = 0.37 and performance d = 0.27. Identification alone is a weak lever. Using a top strength in a new way, or turning that use into a habit, is the active ingredient. Longer, coached programmes beat one-week self-guided emails, especially for follow-up. Risk of bias is typical of positive-psychology field trials: wait-lists, self-report and unblinded participants. Certainty is moderate for wellbeing and low-to-moderate for performance. Indian employed-adult evidence is still thin: one pilot among rural community health workers in Madhya Pradesh (d = 0.55 on happiness, n = 61 completers) and one fully powered trial of 330 workers whose results were not yet public on 22 September 2026. A null on late performance is publishable. Strengths use is not a miracle. It is a small, real, countable practice.