The Healthy Workplace Nudge

Chapter 3Storm Damage: The Cost of Forgetting

Acting like a manager of a high-end hotel, our “Experience Managers” are responsible for ensuring that employees (our VIP guests) have a meaningful experience in the workplace. Because work doesn't always start or stop at the door of the facility, the XM does more than oversee daily operations. They get to know the employees. They assist leaders, managers, and supervisors to plan and celebrate events, anniversaries, and achievements. Our XMs also recognize when an employee is dealing with life's difficult circumstances. They deliver flowers, cards, and notes of kindness and compassion. They are empowered and given direction to simply “do the right thing.”

—Calvin Crowder, vice president for global real estate, GoDaddy

The campaign and election of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States struck like an earthquake, and the aftershocks have continued to roll across the land. Six weeks after the election, I listened to NPR's Scott Simon interview Professor Shannon Monnat. She is the Associate Professor of Sociology and Lerner Chair for Public Health Promotion at Syracuse University.

Her explanation of how rural and small city America flipped the election mirrored the way earthquakes suddenly rise from invisibility to bring mammoth disruptions. As I listened to Professor Monnat, I realized that the disruptions were just beginning to ripple through our society. Five days later I interviewed her.

When I asked how she detected ...