This panel session, scheduled for the SIOP Annual Conference on April 19, 2024, explores the concept of "home-like workplaces" and its implications for employee well-being, work-life balance, and organizational practices. The session brings together experts to discuss the benefits and potential drawbacks of blurring the lines between work and home environments.
Key points of discussion:
The definition and characteristics of home-like workplaces, which offer benefits, amenities, and designs that blur the distinction between work and non-work domains. The dilemma posed by home-...
This chapter presents an updated framework for Integral Organizational Wellness (IOW), expanding on previous versions to address complex workplace pressures and new stressors.
Key components of the framework include: Eleven themes of organizational well-being, categorized into Assessment, Awareness, Action, Applications, and Attractive State Competencies for Occupational Health Psychologists (OHPs) related to each theme Roles and competencies of internal well-being practitioners and allies Potential business partners and their impact on organizational wellness The influence of...
Workspaces are designed every day across the nation, whether through remodeling or new construction. Typically, the design and construction of workspaces are led by architects and construction firms, often with minimal input from the actual occupants (e.g., workers). However, when architects and designers collaborate with Total Worker Health (TWH) professionals, they can integrate health and well-being considerations from the beginning of the design process. This presentation showcases a new building project where health, safety, and well-...
Work spaces are created everyday across the nation, either by remodel or new build. Typically, the design and construction of work spaces are conceptualized and executed almost exclusively by architect and construction firms, with little input from the future occupants (e.g., workers). This doesn’t have to be the scenario occupants are faced with when architects and designers collaborate with TWH professionals on work space design. This presentation describes a new building project where health and well-being considerations were introduced at the very...
This white paper proposes a new paradigm for business success: becoming a 'healthcare business'. It argues that prioritizing employee health, safety, and well-being is not just beneficial but essential for overall business success.
Key points:
The current business landscape is marked by low employee engagement, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment, leading to numerous people-related problems and unnecessary costs. A 'healthcare business' is characterized by organizational policies, practices, and working conditions that promote employee health and...
This white paper explores the concept of "quiet quitting" and its implications for the modern workplace. It argues that quiet quitting is fundamentally about a loss of intrinsic motivation rather than laziness or minimal effort.
Key points:
Quiet quitting is related to disengagement, stemming from a lack of appropriate resources and support in the face of work demands. The COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped worker expectations, particularly regarding work-time control and work-life balance. There's a disconnect between organizational leaders' desire to return to pre...
This paper explores the complex issues surrounding gig work and its implications for workers' health, safety, well-being, and economic security. It argues for an interdisciplinary approach to addressing these challenges, emphasizing that single-pronged solutions are insufficient to tackle the multifaceted nature of the problem.
Key points:
Definition and characteristics of gig work, including its digital platform-based nature and flexibility. Analysis of the pros and cons of gig work, including potential income, autonomy, and job control, as well as the lack of...
A library on campus recently advertised their new standing-height workstations with a catchy sign proclaiming that “sitting is the new sugar.” The word is out: sitting is bad for us; worse, even, than the sugars and fats we have long vilified, and more harmful than cigarettes. Recent studies have linked prolonged sedentary time with obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, back pain, and psychological distress. Simply put, sitting is killing us. Sedentary behavior researcher Travis Saunders cautions that, “all things being equal (body weight, physical activity levels, smoking,...
The Interdisciplinary Center for Healthy Workplaces (ICHW) has developed an Employer Guide that will enable organizations (with an emphasis on small and medium-sized) to find a workplace wellness program that fits their specific constraints. Small and medium organizations face a number of limitations given their size and financial reserves, but employees’ health and well-being needs are a constant regardless of organization size. Employees need a safe, socially supportive, and health-promoting work environment that not only supports their wellness but also enables them to do their best...
HealthyWorkplaces is helping to spearhead the paradigm shift from single variable models of wellness toward an interdisciplinary model of well-being that gives prominence to the physical and psychological states that correlate with and give rise to the development and sustainability of worker health and well-being. As a think tank, with a mission to do and apply interdisciplinary research, HealthyWorkplaces seeks to re-conceptualize worker health and well-being. We seek to understand worker health and well-being less as a single variable associated exclusively with physiological indices of...
