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Health and Wellness Programs May Equal Creativity and Innovation, Research Finds

March 1, 2010 — Organizations that promote employee health and well-being are three-and-a-half times more likely to encourage creativity and innovation, according to new research by Right Management. 

“We found fewer than half of the more than 28,000 employees who participated in our worldwide study reported that their organizations actively promote health and wellness,” said Deborah Schroeder-Saulnier, senior vice president for global solutions at Right Management, which is the talent and career management expert within Manpower. “Yet we now have persuasive evidence linking health and well-being to greater employee engagement, organizational productivity, talent retention and — of utmost importance in today’s post-recession economy — creativity and innovation.”

Seventy-two percent of respondents who rated their organization highly for actively promoting health and well-being also rated it highly for encouraging creativity and innovation. Among those who did not rate their organization’s health and well-being efforts highly, only 20% took a favorable view of their organization’s encouragement of creativity and innovation, the research found.

The top drivers for promoting health and well-being at work, Schroeder-Saulnier said:

•  “I work in a safe and healthy environment.”
• “My organization allows me to maintain a reasonable balance between my family and work life.”
• “You can balance work and personal interests at my organization and still progress.”
• “I have an appropriate workload.”
• “The amount of pressure I experience in my role is reasonable.”

“Of all the individual actions an organization could take, these five would do the most to improve the well-being of employees,” Schroeder-Saulnier said. “In swiftly changing markets, creativity and innovation provide organizations with the ability to meet new needs and make the most of new opportunities. The true potential of wellness initiatives can only be realized when wellness is embedded within the organization’s core business strategy. Leaders and human resource professionals would do well to implement wellness initiatives that focus more precisely on yielding results that drive individual behaviors essential to improving the effectiveness of the entire organization.”

About the Research
Right Management surveyed 28,810 employees across 10 industries in 15 countries. Participants were asked to self-report on attitudes, performance and conditions directly related to the effectiveness of their organization. 

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