Wellness at work: Enhancing the quality of our working lives

Abstract

This paper was prepared for the International Review of Psychiatry as part of an effort to improve understanding of the connection between employee health and performance and to begin to identify new strategies through which treating wellness as an investment in human capital can lead to greater organizational success. Computer database searches of peer-reviewed literature published between 1993 and 2005 and manual reviews of 20 journals were used to identify research on the link between employee health and performance. Data was extracted to summarize the overall findings on the magnitude of health problems addressed by health promotion and disease prevention programmes, and the impact of interventions on improving health risk, reducing health care cost, and improving worker performance. From this summary, major conclusions on early detection of disease, the impact of behaviour change programmes were drawn. This systematic review is supplemented with a case study description of a preliminary evaluation of a corporate wellness programme in a major international organization. The influence of developments in work/family issues, complementary and alternative medicine, and quality of care and health outcomes research are briefly discussed. Finally, a conceptual framework for studying the impact of health and productivity is described.

Management of employee wellness in South Africa: Employer, service provider and union perspectives

“…Of this percentage, only 58% offered it in structured programmes. Considering the significant changes in the South African organisational landscape since the advent of democracy, the shortage of EWPs in South Africa is alarming because change is a factor that greatly reduces wellness at work (Hillier et al, 2005).…”

Automatic Stress Detection in Working Environments From Smartphones’ Accelerometer Data: A First Step

“…In regard to organizational well-being, a decline of physical and mental health of workers has been reported in Paoli et al [8], leading to a decrease in the performance, decrease in overall productivity of organization and increased cost in terms of absenteeism. Experiencing work-related stress is common in working environments and low levels of stress can even result in productivity increase [9]. However, stress responses of employees are triggered when work-related pressure (such as quantity of work to be accomplished in a short period of time, pressure to work overtime, low social support, job insecurity and lesser breaks or holidays) challenge the human ability to cope with them.…”

Screening and Treating Mental Disorders in Addiction Treatment Settings: A Stepped Care Model

“…One approach that would allow attention to mood and anxiety symptoms, regardless of etiology, would be to utilize a stepped care approach where everyone gets SA treatment as the first step but also gets 'Wellness' treatments (WT) that have value across of a range of disorders (Hillier et al 2005). Examples of 'Wellness" treatments include careful instruction in sleep hygiene, exercise regimens, relaxation exercises, and more formal interventions like Yoga and Tai-Chi (Brown and Gerbarg 2005;Jin 1992;Kuramoto 2006;Larun et al 2006).…”