How Your Work Can Determine Your Health

While living in Florida, I served on the board of a purpose-built community non-profit called Lift Orlando. One year, during a planning session, we set out to discuss topics like health, housing, food insecurity, employment, and income, identify opportunities for action, and then prioritize the areas that would become the organization’s strategy.

We had a collective lightbulb moment: every group that rotated through the “health” category started to talk about housing, food insecurity, employment, and income. Human thriving — health — is an outcome driven by every other factor in our life, including those both within and outside of our control.

Work is one of the most important of these drivers. It plays a significant role in our lives, even beyond the substantial amount of time spent on the job, and it has an outsized impact on our overall health and wellbeing. Work is universal and its importance cuts across cultures. The link between work, purpose and how both drive wellbeing and overall health is fundamental to humans.

Embracing drivers of positive health and wellness in the workplace should be considered as important as regular exercise or a mindful diet. This gets at the root of good health, because health services don’t create adequate housing or steady employment. They may bind the wounds for a time, but they are continually treating worsening symptoms. On the other hand, adequate housing or steady employment have a substantial impact on health and thriving.

So how can organizations create a better environment for employees to improve their health and wellness?

Confidential Mental Health Assistance Program

Mental health is too often overlooked or under-prioritized in employee health programs, and even if resources are available, people may hesitate to access them due to widespread stigma. By providing confidential resources and support, organizations can enable employees to more easily seek help for challenges such as substance abuse, anxiety, depression, or work-related stress.

Housing and Food Security Assistance

Housing and food security are critical factors in overall physical and mental health, among the most important “social determinants of health.” Organizations can connect impacted employees to community or government resources in these areas. For these efforts, employers need to make sure their strategies are reaching low-income and frontline workers, who have unique needs and touchpoints with their employer.

Promote Work-Life Balance

A positive work-life balance promotes mental health and physical health, along with personal relationships outside of work. Senior leaders and frontline managers should consider how workplace practices, policies, and culture affect workers’ ability to rest and recharge.

Holistic Wellness Programs

Wellness programs can help employees take positive steps to stay well across all domains of health, from heart health to mental health to financial health. This holistic approach acknowledges how drivers and outcomes from one area of our life influence those in others.

As we spend a majority of time at work, our ability to thrive coincides directly to what we do, think, and feel while we’re working. What’s more, is work is directly linked to purpose and purpose is a cardinal piece to everyone’s lives. For leaders, managers, and each of us in interactions with colleagues, our goal should be to make work a net positive for wellbeing.