Productivity and Employee Well-being – Two Sides of the Same Coin (Part 1)

My interest in understanding what drives the world’s top CEO Forums was initially aimed at helping other business-focused peer advisory groups function more effectively. It was never about applying their most powerful principles and practices to organizational teams; however, the effectiveness of this approach within companies is now crystal clear.

It turns out that if you can build an organization that genuinely understands what hiring the right people involves, promotes a psychologically safe environment that enhances productivity, and fosters a healthy culture of accountability led by servant leaders, the sky’s the limit. These companies exemplify what Dave Logan and John King described in their book Tribal Leadership as “life is great” cultures. They are the cultures that set their own standards of excellence. They consist of people who watch their competitors yet proactively create an even larger gap between themselves and everyone else.

Another Unintended Outcome 

So, another unintended outcome of this work was discovering how peer-driven workplace cultures influence employee well-being. In today’s climate, where focus on employee mental health has increased—especially during the pandemic—it’s easy to overlook how this issue fits into the larger system that makes a company productive and profitable. Remember, not long ago, executives would say things like: “The bottom line is what matters. If employees can’t handle the stress, then maybe they’re not cut out for this industry,” or “We’re not in the business of being therapists. Productivity comes from focus and discipline, not from catering to feelings.”

Recently, during a Peernovation Certified Facilitator cohort meeting, the topic of employee psychological health and safety (PSH) took center stage. While I have written several books and hundreds of articles on Peernovation and its impact on employee engagement, alignment, mobility, learning and development, removing silos, and more, I realized I had not fully explored its potential impact on employee mental health. This was pointed out to me recently by one of our Canadian team members during a Peernovation Certified Facilitators meeting.

Intuitively, we’ve always believed that if employees felt a sense of belonging, it outweighed the alternative. Being part of a healthy team is better than being in a toxic one. When accountability is designed to show people how much they matter, rather than serving as an instrument of control or punishment, it can likely reduce workplace stress and anxiety, both of which do not contribute to long-term workplace health or productivity. While that makes sense, I never considered workplace psychological health and safety in my thought leadership wheelhouse, so instead of leaning into it, I doubled down on what it means to driving higher performance. Until now.

New to Peernovation? 

Peernovation combines the words peer (people of equal standing) and innovation (creativity realized). It occurs when a carefully selected, diverse collection of people, with a common purpose and shared values, work together to make each other better and create something larger than themselves. It’s accomplished by taking what elite CEO Forums have been doing so brilliantly for decades and bringing these principles and practices to organizational teams. What happens horizontally in your company gives its vertical structure strength.

Putting Peernovation’s Impact on Employee Wellness to the Test 

It’s no coincidence that one of our Canadian team members brought this to our attention. It turns out that, when it comes to workplace psychological health and safety, Canada is a leader globally. In 2013, it became the first country to introduce a national standard that identified 13 psychosocial factors affecting employees’ mental well-being.

They include:

1. Organizational culture: Fostering a workplace built on trust, honesty, and fairness.
2. Psychological and social support: Ensuring a supportive environment where coworkers and supervisors respond appropriately to mental health concerns.
3. Clear leadership and expectations: Having effective leaders who clearly communicate roles, responsibilities, and changes.
4. Civility and respect: Promoting respectful and considerate interactions among all staff.
5. Psychological demands: Ensuring a good fit between an employee’s skills and their job requirements to manage psychological pressures.
6. Growth and development: Providing encouragement and support for employees to develop their job-related and personal skills.
7. Recognition and reward: Offering fair and timely acknowledgment and appreciation for employee efforts.
8. Involvement and influence: Including employees in discussions about their work and relevant decisions.
9. Workload management: Ensuring that tasks and responsibilities can be accomplished within the time available.
10. Engagement: Helping employees feel connected to their work and motivated to do a good job.
11. Balance: Supporting employees in balancing the demands of their work, family, and personal lives.
12. Psychological protection: Ensuring an environment where employees feel psychologically safe from harm.
13. Protection of physical safety: Addressing physical hazards that can also cause psychological stress and anxiety.

Summary 

Canada’s standards have prompted international adoption, influencing other countries to develop their own workplace mental health policies. It also inspired us to ask: Is it possible that our initiative, aimed at adopting what peer advisory groups do so well to build higher-performing teams, may also positively affect all the factors outlined in Canada’s standard? Does it imply that if you pursue higher levels of productivity properly, it can also reduce stress and improve employee mental health? With some assistance from AI and by incorporating other research from the American Psychological Association and Mental Health America, we’ll see. We’ll share the findings and how thought leaders in the field responded in Part 2.