Toward human sustainability: How to enable more thriving at work

Over the last 20 years, we have seen dramatic business and academic interest in building sustainable organizations. Sustainable organizations have the capacity to endure and simultaneously satisfy a triple bottom line of economic, environmental and human performance. Yet, in comparison to the environmental and economic dimensions of sustainability, substantially less attention has been focused on sustainability’s human dimension. An important mechanism for understanding the human dimension of sustainability is thriving at work. When thriving, employees are energized to grow and develop. They are creating resources rather than merely depleting resources. Our research shows that thriving is a crucial mechanism for increasing job performance, while also mitigating burnout and improving health. In this article, we contribute to the knowledge base on human sustainability by identifying what can be done to enable more human thriving at work. First, we define thriving, providing examples of thriving individuals at work. Then we draw on nearly a decade of research to provide key evidence for why we should care about thriving at work. Finally, we discuss what can be done to enable more thriving at work.