Workplace Well-being: How to Build Psychologically Healthy Workplaces

14 Creating a Healthy Small Business

Sharon Clarke

Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

In recent years, considerable academic attention has been given to the concept of the “healthy workplace” (e.g., Grawitch, Gottschalk, & Munz, 2006; Kelloway & Day, 2005; Wilson, DeJoy, Vandenberg, Richardson, & McGrath, 2004). The healthy workplace, or healthy organization, reflects employees’ perceptions that the company is “a great place to work,” where the work environment is friendly, supportive, and keeps employees well informed (Lowe, Schellenberg, & Shannon, 2003). Working for such a company has a range of social, psychological, and health benefits for employees, including enhanced physical and psychological well-being. These benefits are well documented and form a crucial element of theoretical models of the healthy organization (Kelloway & Day, 2005; Wilson et al., 2004). Psychological health and physical well-being are important not only for individuals and their families but also to society and the global economy. Estimates of the economic cost of workplace injuries and ill-health run into billions. In the United States, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has estimated that employers pay almost $1 billion per week for direct workers’ compensation costs alone (OSHA, 2013). The total annual cost of workplace injuries and illnesses among U.S. employees was estimated at $250 billion in 2007 (Leigh, 2011). In the United Kingdom, ...