The Healthy Workplace Nudge How Healthy People, Culture, and Buildings Lead to High Performance

Discover how healthy buildings, culture, and people lead to high profits

Organizations and employees now spend an average of $18,000 per year per employee for health costs, a 61% increase in 10 years. Every indicator projects these costs will double before 2030. This is an unsustainable path. These costs are the tip to an even bigger iceberg, the hidden costs of time out of the office, distraction, disengagement, and turnover. The Healthy Workplace Nudge explains the findings of research on 100 large organizations that have tackled the problems of employee health costs and disengagement in five fresh ways:

1. Well-being leads to health and high performance
2. Wake up to the fact that 95% of traditional wellness programs fail to improve health or lower costs
3. Behavioral economics has become a new powerful tool to nudge healthy behavior
4. Healthy buildings are now cost effective and produce your strongest ROI to improving health
5. Leaders who develop healthy cultures achieve sustainable high performance and employee wellbeing

In addition to proving highly effective, these approaches represent a fraction of the cost sunk into traditional wellness and engagement programs. The book explains how to create a workplace that is good for people, releases them to what they do best and enjoy most, and produces great and profitable work.

•    Find actionable strategies and tactics you can put into use today

•    Retain happy, productive talent

•    Cut unnecessary spending and boost your bottom line

•    Benefit from real-world research and proven practice

REX MILLER is the principal and thought leader for MindSHIFT, a future-focused consultancy and organizational performance firm. He has won international awards for innovation and works with many top industry leaders. He develops thought leaders who become market leaders.

PHILLIP WILLIAMS is the President of Commercial Business Development at Delos and directs the business development of health and well-being services and solutions for the commercial real estate market sector.

DR. MICHAEL O'NEILL is Director of the Global Workplace Research, Workplace Strategy, and Market Insights teams for Haworth, Inc.

Foreword xiii

Acknowledgments xv

About the Authors xix

Introduction: The Elephant Whisperer 1

PART I SLOW-MOVING STORM: A HISTORY OF WARNINGS AND APATHY 15

Chapter 1 A Slow-Moving Storm: The Existential Threat to Business and the Economy 17

Chapter 2 The Rainbow in the Storm: Medical Science Meets Building Science 30

Chapter 3 Storm Damage: The Cost of Forgetting 42

Chapter 4 Stress: Portrait of a Killer 53

PART II IS THERE SHELTER FROM THE STORM? A SEARCH FOR WELLNESS 65

Chapter 5 In Search of Wholeness 67

Chapter 6 Why Happiness Before Health 78

Chapter 7 Where’s the Data? Inconvenient Truths 92

Chapter 8 The Mystery of Hospitality: Experiencing the Human Touch 109

PART III MAGICAL NUDGES: THE ROAD TO HEALTH AND WELL-BEING 125

Chapter 9 Nudge Thinking: How Small Things Lead to Big Results 127

Chapter 10 The Healthy Building Nudge: The Invisible Power of the Workplace 141

Chapter 11 The Financial Nudge: The Return on Humans (ROH) 157

Chapter 12 Becoming Your Best Self: Rest, Engagement, Boundaries, and Deep Work 169

PART IV HAVEN IN A HEARTLESS WORLD: THE NEED FOR SAFE PLACES 183

Chapter 13 How They Did It: Creating Ecosystems of Care 185

Chapter 14 Courageous Leaders and a Culture of Care 201

Chapter 15 The MeTEOR Story: Extreme Ownership 216

Chapter 16 Starting a Movement: How Second-Chair Leadership Can Change a Company 227

Chapter 17 Haven in a Heartless World: The Promise of a Good Workplace 245

Appendix A The Well MindShift Core Team 256

Appendix B Well MindShift Participants 263

Appendix C Personal Story Template 267

Notes 269

Index 279

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