Thriving Workplaces How Employers can Improve Productivity and Change Lives 2025

6. Embed employee health into organizational culture: Creating a sustainable and healthy workforce is a long-term journey requiring a systemic shift in organizational mindset and culture. Employee health must be integral to everyday work life and embedded in daily practices, management analytics, leadership behaviours, the deployment of digital tools, policies and values. This cultural shift demands continuous engagement, regular evaluation and flexible interventions to meet needs as they evolve. This approach will help break down some barriers, such as privacy concerns from employees or stigma about mental health. Fostering a culture of health and well-being is not just about immediate outcomes; it is about building resilience and long-term sustainability in the organization. CASE STUDY 9 Ikea Canada implements Wellness Days, reducing employee turnover from 35% to 24.5% Furniture and home-goods company Ikea Canada found through its 2019 annual employee engagement survey that employees cited family obligations, personal illness and stress and that employees wanted a healthier lifestyle. In 2020, the company introduced Wellness Days, allowing employees to take 12 days off per year for personal illness or injury, supporting a family member with an illness or injury, taking care of a personal emergency, participating in a community event, volunteering at a not-for-profit organization, self-care, inclement weather, or spending time with loved ones or a new pet. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, it partnered with the Mental Health Commission of Canada to introduce training and a digital programme that develops self-care, self-leadership, resilience and mindfulness practice. Executives have credited the focus on mental health with contributing to a drop in employee turnover from 35% to 24.5%.99 Create a portfolio of evidence- based interventions for a sustainable healthy workforce Many employers care deeply about their employees’ health and well-being, introducing interventions designed to help, including yoga classes, meditation apps, wellness days and awareness campaigns. Often, however, the portfolio of interventions is not a coherent whole that significantly moves the needle to address specific workforce needs. To make interventions effective, employers must understand and proactively address employees’ needs at the individual, team and organizational level. Companies often provide ways to help individual employees, but mental health apps and gym access alone are not enough if systemic problems remain. So where does a chief executive officer/chief human resources officer/chief people officer/chief medical/ health officer start if they want to create a portfolio of effective interventions? How can leaders select the right evidence-based employee health and well- being interventions? The ideal portfolio aims to address both immediate needs (reactive) and root causes (proactive) and is made up of a complementary variety of interventions, some of which are designed to help individuals and teams, some to reshape jobs and some to change the organization (Figure 11). Thriving Workplaces: How Employers can Improve Productivity and Change Lives 33