Smarter Workplace Awareness Month Week 4: Highlighting Employee Health, Well-Being, Wellness, and Safety

Maryana Arvan & Keaton Fletcher

Employee health and well-being has consistently been a top trend in I-O psychology, and the events of the past 2 years have cemented its importance. That is why we are honored to be the Champions of this trend. Maryana Arvan is an assistant professor of Psychological and Organizational Sciences at The University of North Carolina-Charlotte. Keaton Fletcher is an assistant professor of Industrial-Organizational Psychology at The Georgia Institute of Technology. Together, we cohost the biweekly podcast, Health Work, that covers recently published articles that address the health and wellbeing of employees.

In our current economic model, profit and the bottom-line are often valued above all else, and frequently this comes at the expense of employee well-being. We view studying the implications of work on health and well-being, and raising awareness of these findings, as the first step toward shifting general consensus toward valuing the well-being of employees as much as the productivity to which they contribute. There is currently some really amazing work going on in the field that we are so excited to cover in our Roundups as well as our podcast, ranging from the impact of service-with-a-smile mentalities on employee exposure to sexual harassment, to conflict among astronauts in a simulated Martian environment, to the range of effects COVID-19 has had on employees.  

Our fellow podcast hosts Susana Gómez Ornelas and Claudia Della Pona of Bias Check-In also continue to feature SWAM and the contributions of I-O psychologists to our science and practice. This week's episode features Trend Champion Dr. Gordon Curphy, who chats with Susana and Claudia about virtual teams, challenges and successes of transitioning to hybrid work models, and how to evaluate team effectiveness—independently of the medium! You can find the episode at https://anchor.fm/biascheckin.

We continue to encourage more I-O science and practice dialogue on social media! Tag it with #SmarterWorkplace—we can’t wait to hear your thoughts!