Sustainable Workplace Means Addressing Employee Well-being, Too, According to Stanford Business School Research

STANFORD, Calif.--(Business Wire)--
Corporate practices are affecting not just polar bears and wetlands, but also
may be killing human beings, says Stanford Graduate School of Business faculty
member Jeffrey Pfeffer. As reported in today`s Stanford Knowledgebase the
concept of "sustainability" must be expanded to include consideration of whether
workplaces are good not only for the environment but also for people.

What Pfeffer calls toxic workplace environments, particularly in the United
States, raise rates of disease and mortality. He urges business, government, and
the media to pay attention to what has been a shockingly neglected topic. In the
present distressed economy, he says, "the problem is only going to get worse."

"The lack of attention to employee needs helps explain why the United States
spends more on health care than other countries but gets worse outcomes," says
Pfeffer, the Thomas D. Dee II Professor of Organizational Behavior at the
Graduate School of Business. "We have no mandatory vacation or sick day
requirements, and we do have chronic layoffs, overwork, and stress. Working in
many organizations is simply hazardous to your health."

Specifically, he says, epidemiological studies show that holding a lower-level
position where one does not have much control over job activities and decision
making puts employees at a higher risk of having-or dying from-a heart attack.
"There`s nothing more stressful than being in an environment in which you have a
lot of pressure but relatively little power," Pfeffer says.

In addition, spotty or interrupted health care insurance-a typical consequence
of layoffs and job changes-and the trend toward jobs that offer no health
coverage at all, leads to a significant decrease in routine preventive medical
screening procedures such as mammograms and cholesterol and blood pressure
testing, and as a consequence, added risk to workers` health.

Pfeffer cites research showing that overwork and job stress lead to increases in
smoking, alcohol abuse, and high blood pressure, while layoffs contribute to
depression, violence, and even lowered life expectancy. "There is evidence that
people who experience a layoff live 1.5 years less than those who don`t,"
Pfeffer says.

The Stanford professor thus maintains that the concept of "sustainability" must
be expanded to include not only whether corporations care for the environment
and resource conservation, but also whether they are good for their employees.

As to why the serious question of worker well-being has been given scant
attention by executives, regulators, and pundits, Pfeffer suggests it may have
something to do with current mercenary cultural values. "There was a time when
CEOs believed they had an obligation to all of their stakeholders, including
employees," he says. "But over time, we've come to look at even the simplest
things in financial terms. Childcare, for example, which used to be a matter
between parents and children, is now a service to be traded on the New York
Stock Exchange. This way of thinking is taking out the human factor."

The great irony, says Pfeffer, is that most workplace policies that are bad for
employees are also bad for companies themselves. Organizations that are more
"humane"--offering generous benefits, sick leave, vacation pay, health
insurance, and so forth--are shown to be more profitable. Pfeffer points to
companies such as Southwest Airlines, Kimberly-Clark in the Andean region, and
kidney dialysis provider DaVita as exemplars. "I hope businesses will wake up to
the fact that if they don't do well by their employees, chances are they`re not
doing well, period," Pfeffer says.

In the current economic climate, he notes, more people will be laid off, work
longer hours, become saddled with increasing work responsibilities, and operate
without health insurance. The government, Pfeffer says, will almost certainly
need to step in with regulation. If nothing else, with health care costs on the
rise, government should be looking to the workplace as one culprit in the
decline in the quality of workers' health.

(This story reports on research at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and
appears in today`s Stanford Knowledgebase, the free monthly information source
for thoughts, ideas and research at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. To
dig deeper, visit:
http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/research/pfeffer_toxic09.html?cmpid=kbpage.)

Stanford Graduate School of Business
Helen Chang, 650-723-3358
chang_helen@gsb.stanford.edu

Copyright Business Wire 2009