Workplace health and wellbeing are on management’s radar, but too often treated as a soft issue, placed somewhere between HR, fruit bowls and mindfulness webinars. This is now ending.
International research suggests more attention should be paid to it: healthier workplaces are not only good for employees, they are linked to better organisational performance. In other words, workplace health and wellbeing should be seen as part of its talent and productivity strategies and also, increasingly, its leadership and stewardship responsibilities.
This matters, as the S in ESG is often the least understood element. Environmental issues tend to be visible. Governance is familiar territory. But the social dimension – internal social factors in terms of how organisations treat their people, and the social value that flows from it – is less tangible. Yet for most organisations, it is here that culture, reputation and performance interact.
Recent studies indicate that organisations with high levels of employee wellbeing enjoy better performance on recruitment, engagement and retention, with higher profitability and better stock-market performance. Other work has highlighted the role of healthy workplace practices in reducing stress-related absence, burn-out and the hidden drag of presenteeism – people being at work but not functioning at their best.
In many businesses, the cost of poor workplace health is not evident in sickness absences. It crops up in lower energy, weaker concentration, poorer collaboration, slower decision-making, more mistakes and talented employees leaving. An organisation may appear fully staffed while in practice operating well below its potential.
The answer is not, however, in superficial wellbeing perks. Evidence does not support a simplistic view that free bananas and yoga classes lead to higher productivity. Healthy workplaces are built through enlightened leadership and management, good physical office environments and job designs and ultimately, of course, culture.
Research increasingly suggests a more systemic approach is needed:
The Global Centre for Healthy Workplaces (GCHW) is an international organisation that champions healthier, more productive and more sustainable workplaces around the world. Through its global certification programme, annual awards and summit, research collaborations and international network of employers, academics and practitioners, GCHW helps shape the global conversation around healthy workplaces as a cornerstone of responsible leadership.
Healthy workplaces are not about bolt-on benefits but how an organisation should be run. This is the focus of the forthcoming 14th Global Healthy Workplace Awards & Summit, being held in Lisbon on October 19–20, in partnership with ISEG, the Lisbon School of Economics & Management. The summit brings together employers, practitioners and researchers interested in the links between workplace health and business performance. It reflects a wider shift away from seeing a healthy workplace as a compliance issue towards recognition that it is key to employee productivity and organisational performance.
For directors, this is where stewardship comes in. The role of leadership is not simply to drive short-term output, but to create the conditions in which people and organisa- tions perform well in a sustained manner over time. It also speaks directly to the broader idea of business as a force for good: not as a slogan, but as a practical commitment to building organisations that are productive and resilient as a result of being ethical and humane.
Three questions are worth asking in every boardroom:
Healthy workplaces are no longer simply about looking after people. They are about enabling people and organisations to perform at their best, sustainably, over the long term. That is not just good employment practice; it is good leadership and, ultimately, good business.
By Adrian Pryce DL, Chair at Be. Partners Ltd – Chair Institute of Directors National Sustainability Group, and Tommy Hutchinson, Co-Founder Global Centre for Healthy Workplaces – CEO, i-genius.
In collaboration with ISEG Executive Education for the 14th Global Healthy Workplace Awards & Summit.
