Handbook on the State of the Art in Applied Psychology

CHAPTER 1Chasing the Dream: The Healthy and Productive Workplace

E. Kevin Kelloway

Department of Psychology, Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

Abstract

Employee wellness, total worker health and the creation of psychological health and safety in the workplace are all popular programs rooted in the belief that a healthy worker is a productive worker and that improving employee well‐being will translate into economic benefit for the firm. I review healthy workplace programs and the notion of a psychologically healthy workplace and point to the inadequacy or lack of theory underpinning many of the existing taxonomies of healthy work. Moreover, much of the research in this area has been based on weak research designs with an overreliance on cross‐sectional self‐report data. Longitudinal studies and, ideally, carefully controlled intervention studies are needed to evaluate the claims made in this area. I use research on leadership and employee well‐being as an exemplar to argue that there is evidence that changing organizational conditions (i.e., leadership) can have a beneficial effect on employee well‐being. Approaching the topic of a healthy workplace with more rigorous research designs has the potential to strengthen the evidence base and to provide organizations with guidance on how best to intervene to enhance employee well‐being

Keywords

employee wellness, psychologically healthy workplace, evidence‐based practice, leadership, transformational leadership ...