Workshop 3: Creating and Implementing Effective Healthy Workplace Initiatives

Coordinator: Barbara A. Fritzsche, University of Central Florida

In today’s challenging business environment, productivity demands, information overload, and increasing pressure to balance work and home lives can take a toll on employees. Faced with skyrocketing healthcare costs, global competition, and economic uncertainty, it is imperative that employers focus on workplace practices that improve employee health and well-being. After presenting a brief overview of the healthy workplace literature that links health to organizational productivity, this workshop will offer a comprehensive framework for creating a healthy workplace and real-world examples from award-winning organizations. Presenters will share tools for assessing and building workplace health. Finally, participants will identify actionable steps they can take to raise public awareness about the valuable role psychology can play in building a healthy workplace for all employees. This workshop is designed for practitioners who consult with organizations about the development and implementation of workplace programs and policies that enhance employee and organizational health and performance.

This workshop is designed to help participants:

• Explain the link between healthy workplace practices, employee health and well-being, and organizational performance
• Describe the five types of workplace practices that foster a healthy workplace and examples of each type
• Discuss the key factors that can increase the likelihood of positive outcomes for healthy workplace initiatives
• Identify the key strategies for addressing barriers to successful implementation of healthy workplace initiatives
• Create an individualized action plan for creating a healthy workplace initiative

Anna Erickson is director, Consulting Services for Questar Data Systems’ Organizational Insights Group. She and her consulting team at Questar work with clients to optimize work environments and improve organizational effectiveness by providing expertise in survey and research design, interpretation of results, and driving change. She is especially skilled in helping organizations understand and leverage complex data to improve organizational performance. Prior to joining Questar, Erickson was an internal consultant at both SBC Communications (now AT&T) and Best Buy and worked as a consultant for Personnel Decisions International. Currently, Erickson represents SIOP as the Division 14 representative to APA’s Business of Practice Network (which implements APA’s Psychologically Healthy Workplace Award program). She also serves on the Minnesota Psychological Association’s state-level Psychologically Healthy Workplace Committee where she evaluates Minnesota candidates for the Psychologically Healthy Workplace Award. She holds a PhD in I-O psychology from Iowa State University.

David W. Ballard is APA’s assistant executive director for Corporate Relations and Business Strategy. He designs and directs efforts related to health and well-being in the workplace, educates the business community about the value of psychological services, works to enhance psychology’s position in the marketplace, and provides research and development and strategic consultation to help psychologists build, manage, market, and diversify their practices. David spearheads the APA Practice Directorate’s Psychologically Healthy Workplace Award, a national program designed to recognize organizations that make a commitment to programs and policies that foster employee health and well-being while enhancing organizational performance. He has provided research and consultation services to government agencies, medical schools, and universities in the areas of public health, prevention, and health care finance and has experience in management, marketing, and consumer research. Ballard received his PsyD in clinical psychology and his MBA in health and medical services administration from Widener University, where he completed concentrations in organizational and forensic psychology.

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