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This chapter presents models, measures, and intervention approaches that relate to the double nature of work and its salutogenic quality. Hereby, the view of Aaron Antonovsky is enhanced insofar that health-promoting, salutogenic job characteristics are not solely understood as mitigating the pathogenic effects of stressors at work but have a distinct effect on positive health outcomes. In the chapter, Antonovsky’s original model is first specified and simplified for the context of work. Next, Antonovsky’s line of thinking is related to frameworks researching job resources and demands. After a review of the prevalence of salutogenic measures in worksite health promotion, the point of making salutogenesis more visible in work-related research and practice is elaborated. This is illustrated with a practical example of a survey-feedback process promoting salutogenic work.

Organisations influence the health of society through three major paths: the health of their employees through working conditions, the health of their customers through the quality of their products or services and the population’s health at large through their socio-ecological impact. This chapter focuses on the first path of organisations’ impact on employee health through working conditions. It complements the chapter on salutogenic work by expanding the level of analysis to organisational characteristics. The chapter aims to be particularly applicable to for-profit organisations, in which it is exceptionally challenging to introduce a health agenda.

Organisations influence the health of society through three major paths: the health of their employees through working conditions, the health of their customers through the quality of their products or services and the population’s health at large through their socio-ecological impact. This chapter focuses on the first path of organisations’ impact on employee health through working conditions. It complements the chapter on salutogenic work by expanding the level of analysis to organisational characteristics. The chapter aims to be particularly applicable to for-profit organisations, in which it is exceptionally challenging to introduce a health agenda.

This chapter presents models, measures, and intervention approaches that relate to the double nature of work and its salutogenic quality. Hereby, the view of Aaron Antonovsky is enhanced insofar that health-promoting, salutogenic job characteristics are not solely understood as mitigating the pathogenic effects of stressors at work but have a distinct effect on positive health outcomes. In the chapter, Antonovsky’s original model is first specified and simplified for the context of work. Next, Antonovsky’s line of thinking is related to frameworks researching job resources and demands. After a review of the prevalence of salutogenic measures in worksite health promotion, the point of making salutogenesis more visible in work-related research and practice is elaborated. This is illustrated with a practical example of a survey-feedback process promoting salutogenic work.

In highly organised societies, understanding how organisations influence employees’ health, customers’ health and population health is crucial for health promotion. As the immediate influence on employee health is particularly strong, the chapter focuses on this aspect. Based on a review of ongoing changes of the economy, of organising work and of the roles of employees, we argue that agency for organisational health lies and needs to be strengthened within the organisation. Consequently, we define Organisational Health Development (OHD) as both the ongoing reproduction and the targeted improvement of health in organisations as social systems, based on the interaction (process dimensions) of individual and organisational capacities (structural dimensions). We review conceptual and empirical research of OHD as well as of health-oriented interventions in organisations that at least partly follow the salutogenic orientation. This review leads to an OHD model that shows how individual and organisational capacities co-produce both pathogenic and salutogenic processes in organisations, which taken together influence the sustainable performance of organisations. Such a framework allows to specify the general salutogenic model for the context of organisations. It serves as a joint group action theory for all stakeholders, generating a common language, compatible perspectives and mutual action to improve OHD. Additionally, it supports for well-structured, comparable intervention research on capacity building for OHD. The main challenge for the future will be to hold organisations accountable to be a healthy organisation—being low in producing pathogenic processes, but high in producing salutogenic processes for its members, customers and the larger environment.

Work is both detrimental and health promoting. Antonovsky accentuated the distinction between eliminating stressors and developing health-enhancing job characteristics. He elaborated on job characteristics that potentially relate to a sense of coherence, offering a dense description of a workplace where individuals experience meaningfulness, manageability, and comprehensibility. This chapter presents models, measures, and intervention approaches that relate to the double nature of work and to both its pathogenic and its salutogenic qualities. Hereby, the view of Antonovsky is enhanced, insofar that health-promoting, salutogenic job characteristics are not solely understood as buffering the pathogenic effects of stressors at work, but have a direct effect on positive health outcomes. Antonovsky’s original model is first specified and simplified for the context of work. Then, Antonovsky’s line of thinking is related to frameworks researching job resources and demands. After a review of the prevalence of salutogenic measures in worksite health promotion, the point of making salutogenesis more visible in work-related research and practice is elaborated upon. This is illustrated with a practical example of a survey-feedback process promoting salutogenic work. Finally, the implications and challenges for practice and future research on salutogenic work are discussed.

In highly organised societies, understanding how organisations influence employees’ health, customers’ health and population health is crucial for health promotion. As the immediate influence on employee health is particularly strong, the chapter focuses on this aspect. Based on a review of ongoing changes of the economy, of organising work and of the roles of employees, we argue that agency for organisational health lies and needs to be strengthened within the organisation. Consequently, we define Organisational Health Development (OHD) as both the ongoing reproduction and the targeted improvement of health in organisations as social systems, based on the interaction (process dimensions) of individual and organisational capacities (structural dimensions). We review conceptual and empirical research of OHD as well as of health-oriented interventions in organisations that at least partly follow the salutogenic orientation. This review leads to an OHD model that shows how individual and organisational capacities co-produce both pathogenic and salutogenic processes in organisations, which taken together influence the sustainable performance of organisations. Such a framework allows to specify the general salutogenic model for the context of organisations. It serves as a joint group action theory for all stakeholders, generating a common language, compatible perspectives and mutual action to improve OHD. Additionally, it supports for well-structured, comparable intervention research on capacity building for OHD. The main challenge for the future will be to hold organisations accountable to be a healthy organisation—being low in producing pathogenic processes, but high in producing salutogenic processes for its members, customers and the larger environment.

The term salutogenesis is associated with a variety of meanings that Aaron Antonovsky introduced in his 1979 book Health, Stress and Coping and expounded in many subsequent works. In its most thoroughly explicated meaning, salutogenesis refers to a model described in detail in Health, Stress and Coping, which posits that life experiences help shape one’s sense of coherence (a global orientation); life is understood as more or less comprehensible, meaningful and manageable. A strong sense of coherence helps one mobilise resources to cope with stressors and manage tension successfully. Through this mechanism, the sense of coherence helps determine one’s movement on the health Ease/Dis-ease continuum. In its most particular meaning, salutogenesis is almost equivalent to the sense of coherence. In its more general meaning, salutogenesis refers to a scholarly orientation focusing attention on the study of the origins of health, contra the origins of disease. Salutogenesis—model, sense of coherence and orientation—is in harmony with developments across the social sciences that seek better understanding of positive aspects of human experience. For instance, the key concepts of salutogenesis, of positive psychology and of positive organisational behaviour are consonant even if the terminologies are not uniform. It is therefore quite easy to label research and practice in these arenas as having a salutogenic orientation, and use the salutogenesis umbrella metaphor to embrace the cornucopia of scholarly ideas. Among these is the quite specific idea of the sense of coherence, and this meaning of salutogenesis is dominant, at least in the health promotion literature. This is so much so that some equate salutogenesis with the sense of coherence and refer to the sense of coherence as a model or theory (rather than as part of the salutogenic model). This book is about salutogenesis in all these meanings, which are briefly characterised in this chapter, to set the stage for the cha

In highly organised societies, understanding how organisations influence employees’ health, customers’ health and population health is crucial for health promotion. As the immediate influence on employee health is particularly strong, the chapter focuses on this aspect. Based on a review of ongoing changes of the economy, of organising work and of the roles of employees, we argue that agency for organisational health lies and needs to be strengthened within the organisation. Consequently, we define Organisational Health Development (OHD) as both the ongoing reproduction and the targeted improvement of health in organisations as social systems, based on the interaction (process dimensions) of individual and organisational capacities (structural dimensions). We review conceptual and empirical research of OHD as well as of health-oriented interventions in organisations that at least partly follow the salutogenic orientation. This review leads to an OHD model that shows how individual and organisational capacities co-produce both pathogenic and salutogenic processes in organisations, which taken together influence the sustainable performance of organisations. Such a framework allows to specify the general salutogenic model for the context of organisations. It serves as a joint group action theory for all stakeholders, generating a common language, compatible perspectives and mutual action to improve OHD. Additionally, it supports for well-structured, comparable intervention research on capacity building for OHD. The main challenge for the future will be to hold organisations accountable to be a healthy organisation—being low in producing pathogenic processes, but high in producing salutogenic processes for its members, customers and the larger environment.

In highly organised societies, understanding how organisations influence employees’ health, customers’ health and population health is crucial for health promotion. As the immediate influence on employee health is particularly strong, the chapter focuses on this aspect. Based on a review of ongoing changes of the economy, of organising work and of the roles of employees, we argue that agency for organisational health lies and needs to be strengthened within the organisation. Consequently, we define Organisational Health Development (OHD) as both the ongoing reproduction and the targeted improvement of health in organisations as social systems, based on the interaction (process dimensions) of individual and organisational capacities (structural dimensions). We review conceptual and empirical research of OHD as well as of health-oriented interventions in organisations that at least partly follow the salutogenic orientation. This review leads to an OHD model that shows how individual and organisational capacities co-produce both pathogenic and salutogenic processes in organisations, which taken together influence the sustainable performance of organisations. Such a framework allows to specify the general salutogenic model for the context of organisations. It serves as a joint group action theory for all stakeholders, generating a common language, compatible perspectives and mutual action to improve OHD. Additionally, it supports for well-structured, comparable intervention research on capacity building for OHD. The main challenge for the future will be to hold organisations accountable to be a healthy organisation—being low in producing pathogenic processes, but high in producing salutogenic processes for its members, customers and the larger environment.

Work is both detrimental and health promoting. Antonovsky accentuated the distinction between eliminating stressors and developing health-enhancing job characteristics. He elaborated on job characteristics that potentially relate to a sense of coherence, offering a dense description of a workplace where individuals experience meaningfulness, manageability, and comprehensibility. This chapter presents models, measures, and intervention approaches that relate to the double nature of work and to both its pathogenic and its salutogenic qualities. Hereby, the view of Antonovsky is enhanced, insofar that health-promoting, salutogenic job characteristics are not solely understood as buffering the pathogenic effects of stressors at work, but have a direct effect on positive health outcomes. Antonovsky’s original model is first specified and simplified for the context of work. Then, Antonovsky’s line of thinking is related to frameworks researching job resources and demands. After a review of the prevalence of salutogenic measures in worksite health promotion, the point of making salutogenesis more visible in work-related research and practice is elaborated upon. This is illustrated with a practical example of a survey-feedback process promoting salutogenic work. Finally, the implications and challenges for practice and future research on salutogenic work are discussed.

The term salutogenesis is associated with a variety of meanings that Aaron Antonovsky introduced in his 1979 book Health, Stress and Coping and expounded in many subsequent works. In its most thoroughly explicated meaning, salutogenesis refers to a model described in detail in Health, Stress and Coping, which posits that life experiences help shape one’s sense of coherence (a global orientation); life is understood as more or less comprehensible, meaningful and manageable. A strong sense of coherence helps one mobilise resources to cope with stressors and manage tension successfully. Through this mechanism, the sense of coherence helps determine one’s movement on the health Ease/Dis-ease continuum. In its most particular meaning, salutogenesis is almost equivalent to the sense of coherence. In its more general meaning, salutogenesis refers to a scholarly orientation focusing attention on the study of the origins of health, contra the origins of disease. Salutogenesis—model, sense of coherence and orientation—is in harmony with developments across the social sciences that seek better understanding of positive aspects of human experience. For instance, the key concepts of salutogenesis, of positive psychology and of positive organisational behaviour are consonant even if the terminologies are not uniform. It is therefore quite easy to label research and practice in these arenas as having a salutogenic orientation, and use the salutogenesis umbrella metaphor to embrace the cornucopia of scholarly ideas. Among these is the quite specific idea of the sense of coherence, and this meaning of salutogenesis is dominant, at least in the health promotion literature. This is so much so that some equate salutogenesis with the sense of coherence and refer to the sense of coherence as a model or theory (rather than as part of the salutogenic model). This book is about salutogenesis in all these meanings, which are briefly characterised in this chapter, to set the stage for the cha

The present chapter outlines the practical steps of a targeted organizational health development (OHD) process. It summarizes the theoretical background of capacity building (CB) for OHD of the previous chapter X and introduces principles of consulting based on systems theory as a useful practical approach to CB in organizations. It then shows how this theoretical background transfers into practice. The initiation phase includes contracting between the consultant/client system, developing a project architecture that specifies which perspective is involved in which phase of the project, and finally building competence of managers of the organization for going through the second phase of a participatory optimization/renewal process with their teams. This second phase builds on existing team structures and applies a common four-step project cycle of analysis, planning, implementation, and evaluation. For each of these steps of systemic consulting it is specified how it contributes to CB for OHD in organizations – supporting practical implementation and theory-driven evaluation of this approach.

In recent years work-family spillover, or, more generally, interaction and reconciliation of paid work and personal life, has become an issue of great importance for employees and employers, politics and the public, and particularly the health sciences. After having focused for a long time mainly on negative spillover and conflict between different roles and life domains and on work- and health-related outcomes, the research has recently switched over to a more inclusive integrated perspective by examining also work-family enrichment and positive spillover effects on work and health. Since negative (and positive) spillover between work and family or personal life is quite prevalent, at least in Switzerland, and is found to be strongly associated with various health-related risk behaviors and with widespread health problems and major diseases, it is of great relevance to public and organizational health. Not only employees but also employers benefit from organizational initiatives that aim to facilitate work-life integration. But organizational work-life offers and supports will not be beneficial and will not be utilized enough without meeting employees’ needs, improving the degree of job control or autonomy at work, and being supported by supervisors and a corporate culture that encourages the use of policies, practices, programs, and offered services that help to balance or integrate work and personal life.