How Wellbeing Can Create Competitive Advantage with Dr Richard Safeer

The Evolving Leader

Something about work isn’t working for us.

In this episode of The Evolving Leader podcast, co-hosts Jean Gomes and Scott Allender talk to Chief Medical Director of Employee Health at Johns Hopkins Medicine, Dr Richard Safeer. During this conversation, Richard tells us that one key is to avoid thinking about wellbeing in the workplace as a benefit in kind for employees and rather see it as a source of competitive advantage. Richard’s book ‘A Cure for the Common Company (Wiley, 2023)’ delivers a step-by-step roadmap to creating a culture of health on your team and in your company that keeps your people happier and more engaged.

Referenced during this episode:
A Cure for the Common Company (R. Safeer, 2023)
Richard Safeer website
Creating a Well-being Culture (training program)
Other reading from Jean Gomes and Scott Allender:
Leading In A Non-Linear World (J Gomes, 2023)

The Enneagram of Emotional Intelligence (S Allender, 2023)

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The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production.

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章

1. Introduction (00:00:00)

2. What was the motivation for pursuing medicine and then how did that lead you on to focus on wellbeing in the workplace? (00:14:38)

3. Can you set some context around the challenge of wellbeing in the workplace? (00:15:35)

4. How has this subject evolved since you started looking at it 25 years ago? (00:18:12)

5. You have identified six building blocks as to how organisations might identify the roots that underly the risks of disease to their workforce. Can you give us an overview of those building blocks? (00:19:16)

6. What were the biggest obstacles that you had to overcome when sharing this way of thinking? (00:23:55)

7. What were the big ah-ha moments when you shared the evidence and opportunity? (00:26:22)

8. From an organisational change perspective, how can people start to build this into the fabric of everything? (00:28:28)

9. What are the costs of not doing this? (00:30:32)

10. If you were advising someone in your shoes in a different organisation on how to convince the executive team who might be a bit sceptical on making a major investment, what would you say to them? (00:31:59)

11. How would you recommend approaching the education components to people? (00:36:23)

12. It’s always surprising to me that unhealthy choices are even an option in medical places. Is there a gradual push to making all of the options healthier? (00:40:01)

13. You say in the book that there isn’t just one culture and one norm in organisations, there are multiple. So how do leaders optimise for sub-cultures that exist within organisations where the norms may be very different to the rest of the company? (00:43:23)

14. What are your thoughts on the interplay between decision making and emotional wellbeing? (00:45:42)

15. How does an organisation take responsibility to extending wellbeing to the whole of our lives? (00:49:42)

16. In the next 25 years, where will this evolve to? What are your predictions? (00:53:13)