Workplace Well-being: How to Build Psychologically Healthy Workplaces

2 Business Benefits of a Healthy Workforce

Cary Cooper and Stephen Bevan

Lancaster University Management School, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK

Business success, economic growth, and social inclusion all rely on the continued ability of individuals of working age to remain connected to the labor market, to develop and contribute their skills, and to sustain high levels of work productivity. In this context, it is important that individuals remain healthy and active (Suhrcke, McKee, Arce, Tsolova, & Mertensen, 2005). This is a realization that is slowly finding its way more prominently into the thinking of businesses and policymakers in developed Western economies. For example, the European Commission’s Health Strategy argues: “Health is important for the wellbeing of individuals and society, but a healthy population is also a prerequisite for economic productivity and prosperity” (Commission of the European Communities, 2007, p. 5).

In the current economic environment, however, there are a number of factors that make it more difficult to deliver this aspiration. Some of these relate to problems in the way labor markets operate, some have their origins in declining public health, others focus on the behavior of individuals and employers, and others focus on the way that healthcare priorities are set. This chapter will start discussing the “macro” societal and economic benefits of a healthy workforce. This is because demographic and epidemiological trends suggest that ...