Prescribing a healthy dose of corporate culture

The workplace has a powerful effect on an employee’s health. Earlier efforts to create healthy workplaces focused on injury prevention — more programs today are being designed to help employees choose healthier behaviours.

By Barbara J. Bowes

More businesses are starting to focus on the relationship between positive, healthy workplaces and the critical impact on their bottom line. This growing trend is nothing to sneer at. In fact, I guarantee that other than having my own business, I have only experienced two workplaces in over 30 years where the organization culture was consistently strong, positive, and healthy. If I’m only one example, I would hate to think about the other statistics out there.

What is a healthy workplace? Employees want to feel valued, they want to belong, and feel a sense of accomplishment every day. An ideal organization will fulfill these needs. Employees want and need a visibly harmonious culture and work environment where the interaction between people is positive and respectful. They want to work in an organization where people value each other’s contributions, teamwork is evident and there is a structured and appropriate process for dealing with conflict.

A sense of belonging

Employees want to belong to an organization where leaders are strategic thinkers. They thrive on working for a boss who’s not afraid to set the ground rules and confront conflict. Good leaders are self-aware. They know their own strengths and weaknesses and can quickly delegate and participate in continuous learning.

Healthy organizations are built by strong leaders who are not afraid to recruit and select highly-skilled people who might even be smarter than they are. They are conscious of what it takes to build a healthy organization and use open communication to share and involve employees in building their company vision and strategic plan. They are confident visionaries who not only inspire and motivate their employees, but are quick to reward and recognize productivity and achievement.

To be honest, if I had a harmonious, healthy workplace culture and good leaders, I could easily put up with a lot of other nuisances such as a creaky chair, limited supplies or a dreary coloured office space and a bit of overtime for that matter. Organizations need to look at other workplace elements to create a healthy balance in the work environment.

Thankfully, the last 10 years has seen a growth in interest toward healthy workplaces. In fact, in 1998, the National Quality Institute partnered with Health Canada and a team of key health professionals to define a healthy organization. In their view, a healthy organization is productive, effective, experiences high morale, high employee engagement and a healthy bottom line. Furthermore, they see healthy leadership, healthy workplace planning, a people focus and healthy outcomes as the four key drivers that make a healthy workplace happen. Subsequently, the Institute has developed a set of criteria for a national award of excellence which is now in its 6th year.

According to the National Quality Institute and Health Canada, the physical work environment is much more important than previously credited. This has led to a surge of creative strategies to reduce work injuries, bring employees back on early return to work programs and generally review the ergonomics of the workplace.

At the same time, more organizations are also focusing on hidden issues such as interpersonal relationships, bullying, work pace, rest breaks, physical demands and employee violence.

It’s also interesting to note that employers are slowly moving toward proactive interventions in the personal lifestyle of their employees. Interventions of this nature have been considered taboo; after all, employee health has always been considered a personal and private issue.

Companies are now finding that prevention of employee illness has an even greater impact on their bottom line than dealing with injury or illness after the fact. As a result, more companies are now offering supportive and preventative health programs such as weight loss, smoking cessation, stress management, physical activity, and healthy eating. Some companies are even helping employees meet family challenges by offering special programs on how to deal with teenagers.

A team effort

So what steps can an organization take to journey toward a healthy workplace? The leaders within an organization will need to take a broad and holistic view of all aspects of the organization and its management practices and processes. Senior management and all line management must be supportive of the initiative. In fact, at least one senior manager needs to be assigned to the role of healthy workplace champion. This individual takes responsibility for guiding the overall change.

A healthy workplace is not going to occur by simply having the human resources department add a new workplace health statement into a company’s policy manual. It is a long-term effort that requires comprehensive strategic planning, a commitment to action and widespread training and development.

Begin by identifying and prioritizing both employee and organizational needs. Review current policies and practices and examine employee statistics related to injury, illness, absenteeism, exits and terminations. From this data, establish both short- and long-term healthy-workplace goals and objectives with respect to programming and services. Determine success factors and milestones, identify any potential barriers to success, and develop plans to overcome them. Finally, allocate appropriate financial and people resources and put a measurement mechanism in place.

Throughout the planning process, keep in mind that culture change will not result from a top-down approach to leadership. In other words, change will not occur unless employees are involved and motivated to participate in the improvement of both their own health and that of the organization. This will require the design and delivery of both awareness and specific training programs and involvement in program development. It will also require initiatives to continually measure employee satisfaction and morale and a means to celebrate success and achievement.

Organization culture, “the way we do things around here,” is one of the most important foundational building blocks for successful companies and productive workplaces. If organizations can continue to focus on taking a holistic healthy-workplace approach, they will undoubtedly see an increase and improvement in overall employee health, happiness and job satisfaction, as well as company productivity. Companies that already promote a healthy workplace should consider applying for the Healthy Workplace awards held in October 2008.

Barbara J. Bowes, FCHRP, CMC, is president of BowesHR and vice-president of Legacy Executive Search Partners, Manitoba. She is an author, speaker and workshop leader who can be contacted at barb@bowesgroup.com.

Source: Canadian Healthy Workplace Model, National Quality Institute, 2007

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