A healthy organisation acts in a way that benefits everyone, from employees and customers to shareholders and the world around us. It is a place where the culture, environment and way of working benefit well-being.. What does this look like in the everyday working world?
Work happiness and profitability
Employees who are happy and feel good both mentally and physically are the linchpin of your company. Professor Graham Lowe also underlines this in his book Creating Healthy Organisations.
There exists a reciprocal relationship between individuals’ well-being and job satisfaction and the performance and profitability of an organisation. When individuals are content, the organisation thrives, and conversely, it is easier to experience happiness when things are going well.
Consider a scenario where the business is facing difficulties, struggling to hire sufficient staff, facing tight schedules, and mounting pressure. In such circumstances, maintaining high morale becomes more challenging.
Thus, it works both ways: happy employees contribute to the success of the organisation, and a thriving organisation fosters happiness among its people.
If the organisation is in a slump, it is crucial to be vigilant. Adjust expectations regarding productivity, output, and energy levels. Failure to do so increases the risk of entering a downward spiral that will only produce the opposite results.
External pressures and internal resilience
As an organisation, you want to find that sweet spot; the point where challenge (external pressure, which a company imposes on an employee) and carrying capacity (internal resilience, the amount of pressure someone can handle) are balanced.
On the one hand, it is important to increase employees’ resilience and, on the other, to ensure that external pressure remains manageable. Finding the link between people, pressure and performance is the key to success.