For Better or For Work: Dual Discourses in a Workplace Wellness Program

Abstract

Despite the ubiquity of workplace health promotion (WHP) programs, research has yet to address how employees make sense of the various meanings surrounding free wellness time at work. Through interviews with 30 participants of a workplace wellness program, this study uncovered organizational and employee discourses surrounding health at work. In sharing their health narratives, employees drew on dual discourses, expressing multiple meanings in the program's rationale, workers' participation, and the results of workplace health initiatives. Our findings contribute to WHP literature by proposing workplace wellness programs as a site of struggle, drawing attention to the role of agency in WHP participation, extending managerialism in WHP outside the corporate setting, and connecting workplace wellness scholarship to the meaning of work and work-family policy research.

Shifting From WellnessatWork to WellnessinWork: Interrogating the Link Between Stress and Organization While Theorizing a Move Toward Wellness-in-Practice

“…Thus, despite the push in medical literature to reduce stress and promote wellness in residency (Daskivich et al, 2015), our findings reveal instances of residents equating wellness participation to norm-defying help-seeking behavior. Accordingly, the organization reproduced work, not wellness , a finding similar to many critiques of WWPs (see Dailey et al, 2018; James & Zoller, 2018; Zoller, 2003).…”

“…Wellness—defined as the “complex and multifaceted nature” of well-being and health at individual, group, and organizational levels (Wallace, Lemaire, & Ghali, 2009, p. 1714)—is a buzzword in organizations today, as many workplaces are aiming to create more physically and mentally healthy employees (Scarduzio & Geist-Martin, 2016). Indeed, over half of U.S. employers have WWPs (Mattke et al, 2013), offering initiatives such as diet and exercise courses, employee assistance programs, and health screenings (Dailey, Burke, & Carberry, 2018). WWPs have been shown to impact positively employees’ physical activity (Conn et al, 2009), productivity (Kuoppala et al, 2008), and sense of belonging at work (Dailey & Zhu, 2017).…”

Employee wellness on the frontline: an interactional psychology perspective

“…In particular, some (e.g., Wright, Cropanzano and Bonett, 2007) argue that there are unexplored individual factors that mediate the relationship between health climate and employee wellness outcomes. This dual -organizational and employee -discourse influences "the construction and enactment of wellness programs" (Dailey, Burke and Carberry, 2018;p. 621), and highlights the role of employee agency in WWP participation.…”

Men, Masculinities and the Modern Career

“…Concurrently, individual health has turned into an increasingly topical subject in working life. This manifests itself in both informal organisational discourse in which bodies signalling unhealthy lifestyles are increasingly stigmatised (Amsterdam and Eck 2019;Huzell and Larsson 2012), as well as in the rise of formal workplace health promotion that involves physical exercise programmes, nutrition assessments and mental wellbeing screening (Cederström and Spicer 2015;Dailey, Burke and Carberry 2018;James and Zoller 2018). Although the presence of workplace health promotion is apparently justified by its indubitable benefits for both employers and employees in the form of increased stamina, productivity and personal wellbeing (James and Zoller 2018), doing visible work on one's own health is also widely perceived by employers as a way of expressing professionalism, loyalty to the organisation and commitment to the work (Amsterdam and Eck 2019;Cederström and Spicer 2015;Kelly, Allender and Colquhoun 2007;Meriläinen, Tienari and Valtonen 2015).…”

“…Moreover, participants experienced themselves as subjects of workplace health promotion during work hours. Although participants found these interventions potentially helpful, the criticism of lifestyles centred on work provided them with the ability to consider the meanings of this phenomenon and partly resist it (see Dailey, Burke and Carberry 2018;James and Zoller 2018). Thus, men's awareness of traditions and expectations surrounding them as men and workers did not determine their actions but gave them the opportunity to question and resist these modes of being.…”