Step 1: Start the Conversation

Setting up a Work Design for Health initiative in your workplace requires some preparation. Some organizations may already have well-established guidelines or mission statements concerning workers’ health and well-being, while others may be just starting out. Wherever you are in the journey, this section will guide you through the process of initiating conversations with key stakeholders and launching your initiative.

Start Small

Starting the conversation about organizational change for employee well-being in your workplace can occur in many ways. However, if your organization does not have an existing infrastructure to support workers’ health and well-being, or a track record of supporting this kind of initiative, you may want to start small. Starting small is a strategic approach because it allows you to test ideas and gradually build leadership buy-in. One way to do so is by identifying a champion—an individual or group of employees passionate about health and well-being and respected by their peers—to pilot a small-scale intervention or change. Select one or more issues that can have a meaningful impact on worker well-being but are relatively low cost and easy to implement. Gather feedback on impact and adjust your strategy as necessary. Then use these demonstrations of successful change to sell the case for launching a more robust, organization-wide initiative to the larger organization, including leadership.

Seek Leadership Buy-In

Even if you start small, ultimately gaining senior and middle management support will be critical for launching and sustaining a successful organization-wide initiative.^1,2 Senior management can serve as a driving force behind the initiative, offering a vision for how workplace well-being fits the organization’s larger mission, committing resources, communicating about the initiative, and incentivizing middle management and frontline employees to prioritize it. Depending on your organization’s structure, leadership can include the company owners, the CEO, and other senior managers from finance, human resources, operations, and so on. If your organization has a union, start a conversation with your elected union leaders, as their support and buy-in will be highly valuable in promoting employee interest and participation in the initiative. Whether the desire for change starts with workers or leaders (or both), gaining leadership commitment is ultimately a key step in your path to success.

Make the Case for Change Within the Company

In some organizations, leaders will be eager to make changes that may improve health and well-being because those investments seem consistent with the company’s values, identity, or mission. In other organizations, it is important to provide evidence that investing in employee health and well-being is good for the business. Remind leaders that the cost of inaction is also high and may be showing up in the form of high turnover, low engagement, absenteeism, presenteeism, or high healthcare or worker compensation costs. When making your case, consider what’s in it for them, whether that involves lowering health care costs, improving retention, or being perceived as an employer of choice. The linked resources at the end of this step provide useful ideas for how to make the business case. 

To ensure sustainability of commitment, consider persuading leadership to write a mission statement (or add to an existing one) that connects worker health and well-being with larger organizational goals. An effective statement will include an identification of key leadership strategies that will be pursued to fulfil those goals, including the proposed Work Design for Health initiative. This strategy will prevent any potential disconnect between aspirational goals for the initiative, and the organization’s operational realities and constraints.

Is Your Organization Ready for Change?

Organizations are more effective in creating positive workplace change when they possess a basic level of readiness for change, including having the necessary resources and knowledge to implement organizational change.^1,3 The timing of change is also important for the success of your initiative. Avoid launching your initiative during a period of major organizational instability or change (for example, in the wake of a company merger or a major policy change that has stressful consequences for many staff members). Adding more organizational change on top of existing change may lead to “change fatigue” and staff resistance potentially undermining your initiative before it has a chance to take root.^4,5 Resources at the end of this section can provide guidance in assessing your organization’s readiness for change.

Involve Frontline Employees and Line Managers

Motivating buy-in and participation from employees across your organization is vital for achieving effective implementation^2,6,7 and improved health and well-being outcomes.^3,8,9 Employee participation can involve multiple points of entry, including providing input about sources of workplace stress, being involved in the problem-solving process, and engaging directly in the workplace redesign effort.

Involving front-line workers is essential because they are experts on the daily experience of work stress and the workplace dynamics that drive it. If given the opportunity, they can offer critical insights and creative ideas for interventions to improve health and well-being in the workplace. Providing frontline employees with opportunities to provide such input is giving them a form of job control, which research shows can have powerful beneficial health impacts in itself¹⁰. Furthermore, interventions co-created by employees are more willingly accepted than top-down initiatives and provide employees with a sense of ownership over the process of workplace change¹¹. To ensure inclusive representation and equitable outcomes, be sure to give lower-wage employees and those from historically marginalized backgrounds a stake in the change process¹². 

Line managers and frontline supervisors are key stakeholders that must be brought in early in the launch process to promote successful implementation.^4,13,14 They often play a critical role in successfully implementing the initiative because they manage workflow, and their practices directly impact employee productivity and stress levels. To create buy-in from line managers, communicate how support for worker well-being and stress mitigation aligns with their managerial goals, and make sure these managers are given the time and resources they need to provide such support.

Solicit frontline employee and supervisor buy-in for your Work Design for Health initiative by clearly communicating its purpose and vision and why their participation will be crucial for success. If your workplace has employee groups or a union, these can also be promising places to start sharing your message and promoting employee involvement.

Form a Steering Committee

To provide direction and impetus for your Work Design for Health initiative, you’ll need to form a steering committee to lead the charge in designing, planning, implementing, and assessing your workplace well-being projects. To maximize your organizational resources, you may consider building on an existing health and safety or well-being-related committee (if one exists) by expanding its scope to include a Work Design for Health agenda. Either way, research shows that building an effective steering committee is important for successful implementation.¹ 

Depending on the size and culture of your organization, in addition to a steering committee, you might also consider forming smaller working groups or employee teams responsible for different functions or implementing projects specific to varied local work environments in the organization. Although there is no one-size-fits-all method for structuring your Work for Health Design committees, below are two different possibilities:

A Single Committee

Building a single, centralized steering committee tasked with launching and implementing the initiative may be the simplest and most efficient design for smaller organizations. The steering committee may comprise diverse members representing different work areas, social backgrounds, roles, and organizational management levels. Ideally, the committee should include both mid- and senior-level managers with the power to authorize changes in organizational policies and practices relevant to employee health and well-being, as well as non-supervisory staff. Consider staffing at least half of your committee with frontline workers to ensure an environment where they feel empowered to speak candidly about on-the-ground staff concerns.

Multiple Committees

Larger organizations with diverse departments and functional roles might consider forming multiple committees or teams with different functions. This type of design might involve building a single steering committee composed of mid- and senior-level managers. The committee is tasked with launching and supporting the initiative, overseeing the assessment process, approving, and resourcing action plans, and communicating about the initiative to the organization. Additionally, smaller unit- or department-based committees or teams may consist of frontline employees and a department supervisor or an external facilitator. These local committees are charged with identifying well-being concerns specific to their work areas and designing and implementing solutions with regular input and support from the steering committee. A multiple-committee approach provides frontline employees a separate, safer space to candidly discuss everyday concerns and possible solutions while also promoting interventions which are more customized to local (department- or unit-level) work environments.

The guidance in this toolkit is geared toward either a single committee design or a multiple committee design in which the steering committee provides oversight for each of the five steps in close communication with department- or unit-based teams. For a multiple-committee design, teams should meet periodically with the steering committee to receive support and guidance on project planning and implementation.

One example of a multiple-committee approach is called a “two-committee design.” This approach, created by the Center for the Promotion of Health in the New England Workforce (CPH-NEW), consists of a single “design team” of frontline workers who develop interventions combined with a management-level steering committee that provides oversight and resources. Read more about the two-committee design here.

Who should be invited to join the committee? Engage a wide range of stakeholders, including frontline employees, human resources or occupational health and safety leaders, health and wellness champions, as well as union or other employee representative groups, if your organization has them. Successful implementation depends on aligning the goals and visions of an organization’s key stakeholders.¹⁵ Effective committee members will be enthusiastic about improving worker health and well-being, positive about organizational change and innovation, and well-regarded by their peers. Finally, develop an informal succession plan to address possible leadership turnover, as losing a leader can disrupt committee continuity and efficacy.^7,16

Develop Your Communication Strategy

Once you have garnered senior managers’ support for the initiative, encourage them to publicly communicate this support and the expectation of strong employee engagement. Communication during the initial phase of the initiative is vital to ensure effective implementation.¹ Frontline workers and line managers who have a clear understanding of how the initiative fits with larger organizational goals, its potential benefits, and their expected role in the process are more likely to engage with and perceive the change process positively.^4,17 Clear and consistent communication about the goals and value of the intervention is also important to address potential skepticism or fear of change and to promote staff receptivity and readiness for change.¹⁸ Consider using multiple channels of communication (town halls, staff meetings, flyers, newsletters, etc.) to reach different groups of workers in their preferred modality. 

Communication as a Vehicle for Overcoming Resistance to Change: An Example

A large Danish company²⁰ faced significant challenges in launching a worker well-being initiative due to employees’ previous experiences with failed change efforts. Many staff members expressed reluctance and change fatigue, comparing the new initiative to past unsuccessful efforts. Senior managers on the steering committee took a transparent approach by openly communicating about the reasons behind previous failures and how the current approach was designed differently. They focused on lessons learned, emphasizing improvements in planning, support, and execution to prevent past mistakes. This openness helped rebuild trust among the workforce, ensuring that the new intervention was met with renewed commitment and enthusiasm. By acknowledging and learning from past failures, the organization fostered a more positive and receptive environment for implementing new changes.

Provide Resources: Empower Staff to Make Changes

A successful Work Design for Health initiative is powered by people. To sustain momentum and deliver well-being results, you must consider the resources your staff requires to make positive workplace changes. The most precious resource senior leadership can offer is dedicated on-the-job time to participate in the initiative so that an employees’ participation does not increase their work hours or unduly add to staff workload. Consider negotiating a written agreement with senior leadership about how much staff time committee meetings and activities will involve per month. The agreement can be reviewed and reassessed periodically to ensure it delivers results without undermining organizational goals. Allocating a dedicated budget for health and well-being initiatives demonstrates organizational commitment. It ensures that resources are strategically utilized to address the most pressing health and well-being issues, thereby enhancing the overall effectiveness of the intervention.

When line managers do not understand the importance of stress management for employee well-being or do not properly prioritize it, implementation can be negatively impacted.^13,19 Therefore, senior management should strongly signal support for the initiative as an important aspect of company performance and health so that supervisors perceive active well-being involvement by their direct reports as contributing to rather than competing with organizational performance.

Step 1 Checklist

Ask yourself whether you have accomplished the following…

• Assessed readiness for change by evaluating organizational resources and timing.
• Solicited support and buy-in from frontline employees and supervisors.
• Established a steering committee (and/or department-based teams) with diverse membership.
• Developed a communication strategy spanning multiple channels.
• Negotiated agreement with leadership to allocate resources for initiatives and participation.

Step 1: Helpful Resources

Organizational Readiness

• Good Jobs Strategy Assessment – A quick survey from the Good Jobs Institute to assess your company’s urgency and leadership’s inclination for change, with results that provide a metric score and links to additional resources.
• Survey on Organizational Readiness – A survey from the Center for the Promotion of Health in the New England Workforce (CPH-NEW) designed for employees in a leadership position to assess organizational readiness for change.
• Organizational Readiness Survey Guide from the Ohio Department of Administrative Services. Provides tips on how to develop and analyze a readiness survey.

Making the Case for Change

• Why Invest in Employee Wellbeing? from What Works Wellbeing 
• Making the Business Case for Employee Well-Being from the Urban Institute
• Gather Management Input and Support – from CPH-NEW. This guide provides useful communication tools for making the business case, including a program marketing flyer, sample PowerPoint presentation materials, talking points, and a training video.
• Business Case for Racial Equity from the W.W. Kellogg Foundation
• Business Costs of Unhealthy Work from the Healthy Work Campaign
• Cost of Turnover Tool – A calculator tool from the Aspen Institute designed to help business representatives understand the direct and indirect costs of turnover on the bottom line.
• Good Jobs Resources from the MIT Institute for Work and Employment Research – A compilation of resources about adopting a good jobs strategy.
• Making the Business Case for Total Worker Health from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Construct a Business Case from Thrive at Work
• Cultivating Worker Well-bBeing to Drive Business Value from Indeed and Harvard Business Review Analytic Services