Personal Sustainability
The New Reality for Employers: Personal Sustainability
Historically, the focus of business has been shareholder capitalism. But a radical shift in capitalism occurred on August 19, 2019. On that date, the U.S. based Business Roundtable announced a shift in its Statement of Purpose of a Corporation from one of shareholder primacy to one of stakeholder primacy. The Business Roundtable described stakeholders as being customers, employees, suppliers and shareholders. In other words, stakeholders were individuals, or persons with an interest in the success of the business.
In terms of employee wellbeing, the last 50 years or so has seen employer interest by in addressing the physical health of their employees. The link between the physical health and the performance of employees is well established.
Approximately 10 years ago, employers started developing an interest in the concept of employee engagement. The link between the level of employee engagement and the performance of employees is well established.
And within the past 5 years or so, employers have recognized that their focus only on the physical health of employees was falling short. Therefore, their attention began to shift away from a singular focus on health to the much broader focus of wellness, or stated another way, a focus on the wellbeing of employees. While the word games may abound today, there really is no appreciable difference between wellness and wellbeing. The research has also shown that the link between the various domains of wellbeing and the performance of employees is well established.
While the subject of employee wellbeing is a hot topic today, I suggest that it too will fade in prominence in the not too distant future as the recognition of personal sustainability catches on within the employer community. After all both employee engagement and employee wellbeing are parts of the much larger concept of personal sustainability which, in turn, is part of the still much broader concept of the human experience.
Personal sustainability recognizes the connection between the individual and the broader psychosocial — socioeconomic contexts. In the workplace, in other words, I am talking about the dependent and inextricable connection between the individual and the organizational or workplace context. In the workplace, personal sustainability depends upon the sustainability of the organization just as much as the sustainability of the organization depends upon the sustainability of employees. The two cannot be separated.
I am seeing a future where employers must focus on both organizational sustainability and personal sustainability. Future success will be dependent upon both personal and organizational sustainability.
©2021. William McPeck. All Rights Reserved.
