Psychological sustainability is a key part of Sustainable Workplaces

This is the first in a series of eight commentaries on sustainable workplaces. This series begins with an introduction to workplace sustainability and its role in the larger sustainability paradigm, and the concept of psychological sustainability as a key element of sustainable workplaces. Subsequent posts will take readers on an exploration of several other facets of workplace sustainability – what they look like and how each contributes to an organization’s overall sustainability goals. 

At a time when organizations ask for increased productivity from fewer people, workplace sustainability is key. According to the Hay Group, a global management consulting firm that focuses on leadership strategy and effectiveness, successful 21st century workforces are “lean, able to manage change, and personally fulfilled.”

However, data reports that people are already feeling stretched. In a 2008 National Study of the Changing Work Force, the Family and Work Institute reported:

• 63 percent of adults believe they don't have enough time for their spouses or partners

• 74 percent of us say we don't have enough time for our children

• 35 percent of adults are putting significant time toward caring for an elder relative

• 50 percent of us want to work fewer hours

• 50 percent of us would change our schedules

• 50 percent would trade money for a day off

• 75 percent of us want flexible work options

So how can we create a win-win situation for organizations and the people who are so vitally important to their success? At shiftalliance, focused on ‘meaningful business design’, we call this important element psychological sustainability and consider it vital to building sustainable, thriving, 21st century organizations.

In business, most sustainability conversations focus on the larger economic, social, and environmental systems: the three dimensions of sustainability. Organizations are striving to maintain growth while reducing consumption of natural resources and caring for the health of our communities and natural habitats. They are focusing on the wellness of the whole in the recognition that organizations, communities, and ecological systems are all interconnected, and that the endangerment of any one of these constituents has the potential to harm them all. The trend is about acknowledging a larger system.

The element of psychological sustainability allows us to think even more holistically about sustainability and expand the nexus of consideration even further, not outward but in the other direction – inward. Psychological sustainability adds the internal dimension of people within the commonly accepted triple bottom line equation of people, planet, profit by considering mental and emotional sustainability in the workplace.

shiftalliance defines psychological sustainability in the workplace as the mental, emotional, and behavioral characteristics that allow workplaces to function and thrive over time without depleting the intelligence or energy of the people. For environmentalists, sustainability includes conserving an ecological balance by avoiding depletion of natural resources and caring for the resources we have. We use this concept to identify the elements in people that we want to avoid depleting; the elements that we want to endure or even increase. At the most basic level, we believe these elements are intelligence and energy.

Ideas, innovation, products, and policy come from the heads, hearts, and hands of people. It is people talking, organizing, and behaving together in order to achieve our social, economic and environmental sustainability goals. It’s important that we consider the state of the hearts and minds of our most precious resource—the fourth dimension—and consider how to cultivate a sustainable state of mind for those who work in our organizations and make important decisions on a daily basis.

Psychological sustainabilityis a key to addressing the larger topic of sustainability and sets the stage for organizations to look at policies and processes to increase the intelligence and energy of their people. Please join me in exploring the topic of psychological sustainability and sustainable workplaces over the next several months as I offer ideas, case studies, and thinking meant to help your organization accomplish more by developing a meaningful, sustainable workplace.

Elizabeth Topp is a co-founder of shiftalliance, a consulting firm focused on meaningful business model design