Workplace Level Impacts on Workplace Wellness Programs

More and more research is proving that employee health is strongly linked to the employee’s perception of control over their work demands, and sense of reward for the effort that they are putting into their work. People who feel that they are being treated fairly at work are less likely to experience heart and cardiovascular problems, will have less back pain and fewer workplace injuries.

When building your workplace wellness programs, it is important to consider how your organizational culture and practices will deter from or add to your efforts at improving the well-being of your employees. For example, when introducing a stress management program, if you only provide education sessions that teach employees how to relax but don’t attempt to address the organizational factors that are causing them stress, then your program will have little chance for sustained success.

Consider the following organizational issues when designing your workplace wellness programs:

Organizational Design: Workplaces that are effectively designed for optimal performance are also likely to be healthy organizations. Workplaces that are designed with fewer departmental silos and fewer levels of hierarchy are more conducive to a collaborative style of working and allow for more opportunities for teamwork. This in turn allows for a more supportive work environment, which will reduce employee stress.
Things to Think About…..

How effective are your teams in your organization?
Does your organizational design allow for collaboration and support to occur naturally or does it impede this?
Does your organizational design create unnecessary bureaucracy and frustration for innovative individuals?
Are their opportunities for improvement to your teamwork and support functions in your organization?

Healthy organizational vision, mission and goals: Hospitals truly serious about improving health and wellness need to understand what drives these outcomes. Clear organizational strategies that are drilled down to the department, team and individual levels are considered to be operationally effective. People who clearly understand how their actions impact on organizational outcomes will be more engaged with their work and will also feel less stress. Innovative hospitals understand that in order to achieve world-class outcomes in patient satisfaction and clinical excellence, they need to deliver excellent healthcare services in a cost-effective manner. To achieve these world-class financial and patient-care results, the hospitals need to have excellent internal business processes. Finally and most importantly, to realize these excellent internal business processes, hospitals must employ thriving healthcare professionals. Hospital Human Resources provide the base of this service model and thus are critical drivers of hospital outcomes.

An interesting business case from the for-profit sector (Sears Roebuck) illustrates this “Employee-Customer-Profit Chain” phenomenon. They found that when they could increase their employee capability index by 5%, the Sears management team could predict that 3 months down the road, their customer loyalty would increase by 1.3%. In turn, this increase in customer loyalty could predict that 3 months down the road, they would realize an increase in revenues of 0.5%. The company now rewards their managers based on 1/3 employee satisfaction leading indicators, 1/3 customer loyalty leading indicators, and 1/3 trailing financial indicators. (Rucci, et al. Harvard Business Review, 1998)
Things to Think About…..

Do you have an effective performance management system?
Do you take a “balanced” approach to measuring your organizational performance so that you are focusing your improvements on leading indicators? For example, instead of simply focusing on clinical outcomes or your ability to meet your operating budgets, do you also pay attention to the things that lead to those outcomes down the road (employee satisfaction, employee health, employee innovation, process improvements, etc)?
How do you measure, track and report on these leading indicators? How do you engage your employees and reward them for achieving corporate goals?
When implementing wellness programs for your employees, how can you fit these programs into your multi-year corporate strategic plan so that employee wellness outcomes are tracked as leading indicators?

Use of Information Technology: Healthy workplaces are ones where employees feel that they have adequate resources to do their job safely and effectively. Effective healthcare is dependent on the obtaining and utilizing the right information at the right time. Effective knowledge management strategies are supported with appropriate use of technology. Inappropriate use of information technology can also become a source of stress if the employee has little control over the quality and quantity of information that they are receiving or if they do not have the resources or knowledge of how to organize the information in an easily retrievable format.
Things to Think About….

Do you have effective information systems? (Are they fully accessible and well-organized so that people receive the right information in a timely fashion?)
Are all of your employees comfortable with using the information systems? Do they use the systems optimally?
Can you reduce the stress on your employees by creating better information technology systems or by providing more training, mentoring, workshops for your IT users?

Corporate Policies and Practices: Formal practices and processes create effective workplace systems. Policies and procedures are documents that layout these systems in a visual manner. Clear and consistent policies and procedures that are created and implemented in a fair manner will reduce the amount of uncertainty for employees and thus can reduce their stress. Human Resources practices in particular are strongly related to employee health and satisfaction. There is also a strong business case for building more effective HR practices. A recent study powerfully shows how “superior human capital practices ….are a leading indicator of increased shareholder value.” (Watson Wyatt Worldwide, 2001) For example, they found that HR practices that reward employees for good work and refuse to accept sub-par performance dramatically increases market value of the company by 16.5%.
Things to Think About…

Are your HR policies and practices clear and applied in a consistent and fair manner?
Are your HR policies and practices congruent with promoting the health and well-being of your employees?
Do you have reward and recognition policies and practices in place that reward employee efforts?
Does your hospital focus on continuously improving your practices and actively seek employee involvement in process redesign?

Corporate Culture: In general, workplaces that have created a culture of compassion, mutual respect and positive attitudes will be a better place to work than places that are described as “toxic energy dumps”. Formal and informal efforts are needed to create this healthy culture.

“The true measure of a healthy organization is not in its programs, but in its feel: its ability to foster both employee and customer delight, in pursuit of high performance.” From The Healthy Scorecard, Danielle Pratt 2001.
Things to Think About:

How would you describe the health of your corporate culture?
Is there a sense of corporate responsibility to become a recognized healthier workplace so that you can become a model for the workplaces in your community?
What cultural issues will you need to address in order to promote your wellness programs effectively?
Who can you go to in your hospital to help you create a healthier culture? (i.e. formal and informal “toxic handlers” or “change agents”).
Do your leaders effectively “walk the talk” when it comes to implementing cultural changes. For example, do they act in a compassionate and respectful manner in the workplace?
Does your corporate culture support or detract from your wellness program efforts?