UKWON

THE UK WORK ORGANISATION NETWORK

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How is Resilience Achieved?

Health and wellbeing
Work can have positive or negative impacts on health and wellbeing.
Many organisations still see the connection between health and work as largely restricted to concerns with physical hazards. Yet studies show that work can have a much broader impact on health.

As well as a financial reward work gives many of us self-esteem, companionship and status. Research shows that this ‘feel good’ factor is strongly influenced by the amount of control we have over our working lives. A significant degree of control over the way we do our jobs increases employee commitment to an organisation. Thus healthy and well-motivated employees can certainly have a positive impact on productivity and effectiveness.

But while the benefits of work greatly outweigh any disadvantages, work can also have serious negative consequences for health. According to UK Government figures, two million people suffer an illness they believe has been caused by, or made worse by, their work. This can include stress, anxiety, back pain, depression and increased risk of coronary heart disease and other serious illnesses.

Critical factors in achieving ‘win-win’ outcomes for employers and employees include:
• relationships between line managers and employees;
• levels of employee involvement;
• job design, work organisation and flexible working;
• the role of occupational health.

Resources
The Resilience GSK case study provides a good account of how to promote healthy working.

This paper from the EU-funded Innoflex project provides an overview of approaches to work organisation which can lead to healthy working.

The Dutch WEBA Instrument offers an effective tool for measuring the effectiveness of job design, including its impact on physical and psychological health.

Practical advice and actionable knowledge are available from:
ACAS – the UK Arbitration, Conciliation and Advisory Service.
www.acas.org.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=854&p=0

Enterprise for Health – a coalition of European companies committed to healthy working. www.enterprise-for-health.org/index.php?id=88

HSE – the UK Health and Safety Executive guide to stress measurement

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