A full-time employee may work over 2,000 hours a year. Considering the known impact of environment and peers on individual behavior, creating a health-promoting workspace and supportive company culture may be the keys to improving productivity while preventing burnout. For more on transforming workplace cultures, I am joined by Dr. Richard Safeer. In our conversation, Rich provides suggestions to encourage physical health at work. These include small actions, like placing a bowl of fruit instead of doughnuts on a meeting table, and structural changes, like offering low sodium cafeteria options. He advocates for leadership at all levels to find creative ways to support their teams’ wellbeing. “An organization has a culture across the entire workforce, but then each team has a subculture… they can be part of the solution where they can have a better experience at work, and we [as leadership] have to help empower them to do that.” Similarly, fostering positive interpersonal relationships among a company’s workforce can improve mental health and overall wellbeing. Rich explains the phenomenon of “social contagion,” in which one interaction between individuals can influence how those individuals go on to interact with others – for better or worse. “Those could be our friends, our coworkers, namely our manager… What happens is that a bad mood can spread to others and inadvertently cause other people to have a bad day.” With this framework, Rich discusses how workplaces can implement wellness plans most effectively, how we can measure a plan’s success, and how employees can seek support for their health. Here are the details of our conversation: [00:01:45] Connecting healthcare and patients’ workplace [00:02:45] The rise of “workplace wellness” [00:05:22] Wellness vs. wellbeing [00:08:28] Defining “culture” [00:10:30] How the workplace shapes our behavior [00:12:14] Behavior economics [00:13:18] Social contagion and the Three Degrees of Influence [00:15:08] Implementing wellness plans [00:17:14] Working towards wellbeing at all levels of a company [00:18:58] Rich’s initiatives at Johns Hopkins [00:21:36] Magnifying wellness at the institutional level [00:23:43] Measuring success in culture and programs [00:25:45] Optimizing individual potential and the CDC Worksite Health Scorecard [00:27:58] Asking your workplace to support you
About Richard:
For the past 25 years, workplace health pioneer and thought leader Richard Safeer, M.D. has assessed cultures, trained leaders, and conducted and explored research on the intersection of individual and organizational behavior.
Dr. Safeer currently serves as the Chief Medical Director of Employee Health and Well-Being for Johns Hopkins Medicine where he leads the Healthy at Hopkins employee health and well-being strategy. Previously, he was the Medical Director of Preventive Medicine for CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield in Baltimore, Maryland.
In January 2023, with publisher Wiley, Dr. Safeer released A Cure for the Common Company: A Well-Being Prescription for a Happier, Healthier, and More Resilient Workforce. Dr Safeer is the first author to provide a step-by-step roadmap for creating a well-being culture that integrates science with practical solutions as demonstrated by the numerous real stories from successful companies.
He is a fellow of the American Academy of Family Medicine, the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, and the American College of Preventive Medicine. He serves on the New England Journal of Medicine Catalyst Insight Council and previously served on the board of directors for the American College of Lifestyle Medicine.
Links:
You can learn more about Richard’s work at RichardSafeer.com or follow him on LinkedIn.
If you’re looking for training on how to create a wellbeing culture on your team or organization, then go to CreatingAWellbeingCulture.com
A Cure for the Common Company: A Well-Being Prescription for a Happier, Healthier, and More Resilient Workforce is available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.