Inside-out health in organizations.
We live in times of constant change. Every day brings new business models, new ways of social interaction, new sources of leisure, new ways to expend energy—even to generate it. Never before have we been exposed to so many changes and innovations in such a short time.
A new paradigm in organizations: from outside-in health to inside-out health.
These continuous changes make yesterday’s models obsolete and emerge at such speed that adapting to them at the same pace is a real challenge. In one way or another, we all live in a VUCA environment (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity). This often requires us to rethink how we face challenges—or even create entirely new ways to tackle them.
Regarding Health in Organizations, Occupational Risk Prevention has helped avoid many health problems caused by workplace accidents and occupational diseases. Legislation, provision of Personal Protective Equipment, communication of prevention measures and standards, etc., have been and continue to be very useful in work environments where both the work and its risks are primarily physical. However, today’s predominant productive model and our socio-cultural environment demand a comprehensive approach to health, one that considers psychosocial risks and people’s lifestyle habits.
Health depends on people’s skills, habits, and motivations.
In a physical environment, health measures are provided from the outside, such as a regulation or a protective device. Compliance is relatively easy to monitor. We can forbid entering a worksite without a helmet and harness and observe if the rule is followed. But we cannot forbid someone from coming to work stressed, preoccupied with family problems, or with high cholesterol. In these cases, health depends on people’s skills, habits, and motivations, and the factors influencing well-being and performance go far beyond the workplace.
If organizations truly want to improve people’s health, they must guide them through a journey that starts with three questions:
What aspects of my health can I improve?
Why should I improve them?
How can I improve them?
From this perspective, organizations and institutions must help ensure that health-promoting measures come from the people themselves, through motivation, knowledge, and training. Companies aspiring to be Healthy Organizations should adopt an inside-out model, making the person the engine of their own health, engaging them, and providing the means to take charge of their well-being in a holistic way.
