Wellness at work: Building healthy workplaces.

W ellness is “the active process of becoming aware of and making choices toward a successful existence, both as individuals within society and within the work environment” (1). Wellness enhances physical, mental, and social well-being, and in one word, “health.” In recent years, wellness has moved into the workplace as enterprises — meaning both for-profit and not-for-profit companies, businesses, firms, institutions and organizations designed to provide goods and/or services — have recognized the role that the workplace can play in supporting worker health. While enterprises have the responsibility to provide safe and hazard-free work environments, they also have the opportunity to promote worker health and foster healthy workplaces (2). The average person spends more time working than any other daily activity of life (3), and, over a lifetime, an average of 90 000 hours on the job (4). The workplace, therefore, is an important setting, not only for health protection — to prevent occupational injury — but also health promotion — to improve overall health and well-being (2,5). The concept of the healthy workplace is not new, but it has indeed changed, evolving from a nearly exclusive focus on occupational health and safety (managing the physical, chemical, biological, and ergonomic hazards of the workplace) to include work organization, workplace culture, lifestyle, and the community, all of which can profoundly influence worker health (6). Today’s healthy workplace includes both health protection and promotion (6). In short, it includes wellness. The World Health Organization (WHO) has captured these elements in its definition of the healthy workplace. Based on a systematic literature and expert review, WHO proposes the following definition (5,6):