Ford Motor Co. made “Quality Is Job 1” a household slogan in the 1980s. There have been “Safety First” signs hanging at job sites around the world for decades. Every organization has several phrases that are ingrained into its culture, and ‘quality’ and ‘safety’ are typically – and justifiably – two of them.
Can we get a new sign?
But what about health? How do we get ‘health’ to be part of an organization’s culture?
You can’t come to work and not be safe. You can’t punch the clock and not do quality work. How do we get to a point where it’s not OK to come to work and not be healthy?
Upper-level management at organizations will tell you that employees are the most important part of their organization. They’ll also ask what the return on investment is to keep those same employees healthy. That sounds like two drastically different sentiments coming from the same person.
We believe, of course, that healthy well-being in people is too important to be recorded only in a financial report. That is only one measure. What’s the measure of retention? What’s the measure of morale? What’s the measure of enthusiasm? What’s the measure of creativity?
Those managers understand that a culture of quality and safety is beneficial to both the employee and the organization. They have to understand there is also a connection between employees’ healthy well-being and their performance and the organization’s profit.
That connection exists, of course. The data is there.
Our role at Edington Associates is to work with organizations to create and maintain a high-performing workforce while reducing and eliminating the upward trend of excess healthcare costs and financial loss due to short-term disability, absent days and workers’ compensation.
To get there, organizations must be willing to broaden the scope of their culture.
Quality. Safety. Health.
edington associates 
