There are many easy activities to do that can be organised in the workplace to make these environments healthier, happier and productive.

This section provides information for employees and employers on ways to enhance well-being, create healthier workplaces, successfully manage workplace mental health issues and related work place legal issues.

What Makes A Workplace Great?

What makes a great workplace? Is it big pay and lots of benefits, or does it vary from workplace to workplace? A lot has been written about this issue. In fact the first serious work happened at the beginning of the 20th Century, by a gentleman called Fredrick Taylor. Another serious piece of work was done in the 1960s by another Frederick, this one called Herzberg. He looked specifically at the things which keep us satisfied and those things that motivate us to work. His work has underpinned much human resource management practice ever since.

A few years ago, The Gallup Organization in Canada decided to initiate a multi-year research project to try and define what a great workplace is. The first task was to define what "great" was. They decided to go beyond merely “satisfied” and look at more than just external motivators. So they studied workplaces with a focus on four factors: employee retention, customer satisfaction, productivity and profitability. Based on this research, they have made a number of key discoveries.

The first: There are no great companies. There are only great workgroups.

The second was a series of great work place characteristics:

• I know what I have to do.
• I have the materials/equipment I need to do my work right.
• I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day.
• In the last 7 days, I have received recognition or praise for doing good work.
• My supervisor, or someone at work, seems to care about me as a person.
• There is someone at work who encourages my development.
• At work, my opinions seem to count.
• What we do here is important to me.
• My fellow employees are committed to doing quality work.
• I have a best friend at work.
• In the last 6 months, someone at work has talked to me about my progress.
• This last year, I have had opportunities at work to learn and grow.

This all seems pretty obvious really - no rocket science! But how many organisations get these characteristics right? Well with one major survey reporting 68% of employees (in a survey of 83,000 employees) showing some symptoms of depression, maybe not enough.