It's a Two-Way Street to a Healthy Workplace Environment

By Morgan Hopkins

Regardless of what an organization specializes in or the company's size, the physical and mental health of an organization’s employees is paramount for all operations to run smoothly. Employees' health should be considered a two-way street of mental and physical well-being, each with an influence on the other. Poor physical health can increase the risk of negative psychological effects such as anxiety and depression, while decreased mental well-being can contribute to negative physical outcomes such as fatigue and increased sensitivity to pain. Promoting a healthy work environment that promotes physical and mental well-being has been shown to stabilize employee retention, improve employee engagement and increase employee productivity and satisfaction.

For decades, employers have acknowledged the risks of workplace stress and recognized the benefits of encouraging and assisting employees to maintain healthy physical lifestyles inside and outside the office to manage physical stress. Standing desks, ergonomic workspaces, in-office gyms, fitness subscriptions, and monthly stipends to spend on physical care are just a few ways organizations have prioritized and incorporated physical health into their workplace environments.

Although the growing need for recognition and the importance of workplace mental well-being has skyrocketed in recent years, employers can face a delicate challenge in finding and implementing the best practices to create a holistically healthy work environment. Some barriers preventing progress toward assembling effective workplace mental well-being practices may be stigma, a weak institutional foundation for implementation, and a lack of effective training for management.

So, what has worked?

Despite these hurdles, research suggests there are several ways organizations can work toward creating a healthy work environment that acknowledges and prioritizes employees' mental and physical well-being; here are three.

Recent studies examining organizational best practices for creating and maintaining a healthy work environment demonstrate that the most successful practices combine leadership training, fostering an open space for employee disclosure, and providing workplace accommodations that assist employees in securing what they need for both physical and mental well-being.

1. Leadership Training

The goal of leadership within an organization is to manage employees and address their needs related to achieving the company's mission. Healthy work environments begin with health - oriented leadership training, which equips employers, management, and leadership teams with training in both staff care awareness and staff care behavior. This training emphasizes the warning signs of struggling employees and lends members of leadership the tools they need to take appropriate action. This type of training has been shown to be mutually beneficial for members of leadership as well as their employees.

2. Fostering Disclosure

One of the biggest barriers to creating a healthy work environment is overcoming the stigma regarding mental well-being. Organizations can combat this by encouraging leadership to create a space and set a standard that makes employees feel safe to talk about their mental well-being. Setting the “tone” in this manner has been shown to promote discourse and disclosure which can be effective in diminishing negative stigmas employees face when it comes to speaking up about their mental health.

3. Providing Workplace Accommodations

In the same manner that organizations often include some physical health perks for employees as part of a benefits package, research shows that employees benefit from organizational assistance when accessing resources for their mental health needs. Even a small amount of acknowledgment and assistance has been shown to promote a healthier work environment as employees can see the organization is aware of and prioritizes their mental well-being. This is especially true in smaller companies that may not have the capital capabilities to offer stipends; even the ability to connect employees with the resources they may need has been shown to lend toward a healthier work environment.

Even as workplace dynamics continue to evolve and change in our modern world, a constant remains that people are at the foundation of every workplace and organization, and fostering employees' mental and physical health is beneficial for every part of the company.

References:

Pischel, S., Felfe, J., & Klebe, L. (2023). “Should I further engage in sta care?”: Employees’ disclosure, leaders’ skills and goal conflict as antecedents of health-oriented leadership. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 20(1), 162. doi:https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20010162

Coppens, E., Hogg, B., Greiner, B. A., Paterson, C., de Winter, L., Mathieu, S., . . . Thomson, K. (2023). Promoting employee wellbeing and preventing non-clinical mental health problems in the

workplace: A preparatory consultation survey. Journal of Occupational Medicine and Toxicology, 18, 1-15. doi:https://doi.org/10.1186/s12995-023-00378-2