Wellbeing · Leadership · Diversity
Understand how
people experience
work.
We create immersive stories that let people step into realistic workplace situations, and study how they think, feel, and respond.
College of Business and Economics
California State University, Fullerton
Jordan · Private message
“I’m not sure where I fit anymore.”
Your team is preparing to use a new AI tool. In the meeting, everyone seemed ready to move ahead. Afterward, a colleague sends you a private message.
What would you say?
Step into TeamSpace to read the conversation and write your reply.
Enter the conversationThis preview shows one moment. A fuller story can unfold over ten working days through messages, emails, documents, and other activities.
Practice that fits into the workday.
Get to know the people and the situation, then stay with them as the story develops.
A research report with findings, supporting evidence, and practical recommendations.
01 / Our approach
There’s more to a workplace
situation than you can see from one role.
The same decision can look different to a manager, a new employee, or someone whose work is about to change. Our immersive stories let participants encounter those situations, respond in their own words, and consider what they might otherwise miss.
Practice.
Help employees and managers navigate difficult moments before they encounter them at work.
Build skillPilot.
Explore how employees respond to a proposed change inside a story, before bringing it into the workplace.
Inform decisionsPerspective.
Give leaders a view from the other side of the conversation, so they lead with greater understanding.
Deepen understandingBeyond the story we offer wellbeing and inclusion assessments, mental health and leadership workshops, and technology-supported tools.
02 / The WELD difference
Every service
is also a study.
We work with you to define a research question, gather evidence, and report what we find. You receive a clear account of the results, their limitations, and what they could mean for your organization.
Built on a published method
Our immersive workplace stories use the Immersive Daily Interaction Design, a research method developed and published by our faculty.
Designed to measure change
We build evaluation into the engagement and share the findings, whatever the results show.
Useful to your organization. Useful to the field.
You receive an aggregated brief and recommendations. Research findings help build knowledge about working life.
03 / Working together
Work with our faculty and help students become researchers.
Your organization brings a workplace question. Our faculty guide the research, and students contribute to designing the experience, analyzing responses, and presenting findings. You receive evidence to inform your decisions while students gain paid experience working with organizations on real workplace problems.
Define the question together.
We discuss what is happening in your organization, what you want to understand, and what the project can reasonably address.
Develop the study.
Faculty and students shape the experience around your question and review it with you before participants take part.
Gather and analyze responses.
Students work under faculty supervision to examine the evidence and consider what it does and does not tell us.
Share the findings.
We deliver a research report and discuss the results, limitations, and possible next steps with your team.
04 / Impact Fellowships
Your project helps fund a student’s Impact Fellowship.
When your organization works with WELD, project funding helps support paid Impact Fellowships for CSUF students. Fellows contribute to your project under faculty supervision, gaining experience with real workplace problems while helping produce research your organization can use.
Students learn how organizations work, collaborate with professionals, and communicate findings. That experience helps prepare them for careers within and beyond research.
Ask about student research opportunities ↗Develop skills in study design, data collection, and analysis with faculty guidance.
Apply those skills to a workplace project and help the team investigate its research question.
Practice explaining findings, work with organizational partners, and explore interests for further study or a career.
Our faculty’s research appears in journals including:
Human Resource Management
Journal of Organizational Behavior
We study wellbeing, leadership, diversity, and the changing experience of work.
Let’s start a conversation
Bring us a problem.
A thirty-minute conversation is a place to start. Tell us what your people are facing, and we’ll explore whether the lab is a good fit.
Book a 30-minute conversation Dr. Phoenix Van Wagoner · Lab Directorpvanwagoner@fullerton.edu