Creating Healthy Workplaces: Stress Reduction, Improved Well-being, and Organizational Effectiveness – Edited by Caroline Biron, Ronald J Burke and Cary L Cooper

Much is being made of healthy workplaces these days, and that goes far beyond providing natural light and ergonomic chairs for employees. This academic work is structured in five parts, namely: Creating Healthy Workplaces; Models and Approaches; Work-Life Balance and Physical Health Interventions; Civility, Engagement and Participation; Leadership Interventions and Implementing Interventions. The level of research presented here is impressive, but it is dominated by work from academic psychologists. I was surprised that more HR specialists were not represented, nor were medical practitioners included.

Three primary objectives

• Set concrete examples of best practices to create healthy workplaces.
• Promote theoretical developments in the fields of stress prevention and positive organisational leadership.
• Help practitioners develop, implement and evaluate these complex interventions.

These are met via the significant and varied contributions from the wide field of expertise of the contributing writers. There are a number of case studies and reviews of long-running programs, such as that from CREW, the Civility, Respect and Engagement in the Workplace process designed in the US Veterans Health Administration. This organisational intervention was carefully examined and the resultant analyses outlined in Chapters 9 and 10 are quite illuminating as they traverse nearly 10 years of operation. There are a number of other interventions examined throughout the book, which are reviewed in the level of minute detail found in academic management textbooks. The primary value of this book is to the researcher and the specialist in the field. Having noted that, however, this is a valuable contribution to the field of workplace wellbeing and it would be highly useful to the teaching academic and the international HR manager.