It’s hardly news that healthy employees who enjoy their work also perform better and contribute more to the development of the organization. Doing your best to help employees feel good at work has become a given for many employers, but far from all have found the right tools to succeed.
So how do you actually go about creating a healthy corporate culture, where you lift, support and help each other succeed?
Here we offer a brief insight into how you can start or further develop a health-promoting perspective.
A health-promoting corporate culture can, over time, be developed in collaboration between employees, work groups and management. It often involves changing perspective and focusing on how we want things to be at work, instead of only focusing on how we don’t want them to be. We are so used to trying to measure the effect of health promotion in terms of changes in sickness absence, which is a very blunt and outdated tool. That approach focuses on reducing what we want less of, but can mean we miss the overall goal of good job satisfaction, climate and health for everyone.
From an evolutionary and biological standpoint, humans are predisposed to focus on obstacles, problems and dangers that we notice or believe we will notice in the future. We have a risk-aware mindset at our core, and that has contributed to our species’ survival. And getting a handle on risks and threats is extremely important in working life as well, so we can prevent and manage them before they become reality. But to create a sustainable climate, we need to complement this view with a more health-promoting perspective, a so-called salutogenic approach. In short, this means we must also focus on how we want things to be, what contributes to health and well-being, and how we can strengthen the parts that already work well. This approach gives us a clearer direction and is often a common denominator among companies that are known for having a strong corporate culture and are ranked as the most attractive employers.
Both perspectives are needed, and if we are to make wise decisions that benefit the corporate climate, we need to understand where we are starting from. Both which parts already work well and that we want to preserve/develop, and the parts where there may be risks of ill health or a poorer climate. We usually find it easier to identify risks and set up action plans to counter them. Or rather, it doesn’t require as much focus, because that ability is already genetically programmed into most of us. But to create a culture where we lift each other up and focus on what creates success for us specifically, we need to focus more on the positive aspects.
