The Costs and Benefits of Promoting Workplace Wellness

A Model - Forces Acting on Health and Productivity in the Workplace

Research conducted for the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in partnership with the National Quality Institute (Shain & Suurvali, 2001) has found that employee health is affected by 2 factors:

The organization of work: this is what the workplace does to employees once they are at work. This includes both the physical environment (i.e. safety) and the psychosocial environment (i.e. culture and climate).

Personal health practices and resources: are what employees bring with them to the workplace such as hereditary issues, attitudes, personal resources, and health practices (i.e. tobacco use, nutrition, alcohol and other drug use, physical activity and sexual practices).

Organization of Work describes "what the workplace does to employees once they are there in terms of organization of work in both the physical and psychosocial sense" (Shain & Suurvali, 2001).

Personal Health Practices and Resources describes "what employees bring with them to the workplace in terms of personal resources, health practices, beliefs, attitudes, values and hereditary endowment" (Shain & Suurvali, 2001).

Health of Employees is affected by the organization of work and their personal health practices and resources (Shain & Suurvali, 2001).

Productivity is affected both directly and indirectly by personal health practices and the organization of work as illustrated below:

	Personal Health Practices	Organization of Work
Direct	Smoke breaks	Design of work
Indirect	Time away from work due to a smoking related illness	Management practices cause anxiety which negatively affect productivity

Facts and Stats to Make the Case for Workplace Health