HBHI is the host of 'Conversations on the Business of Health,' a series of one-hour webinars that engage leaders of business and academia about improving American health care. Here are highlights from the recent discussion about organizational objectives and employee health, featuring professor of sleep medicine at the University of Oxford and Big Health co-founder Colin A. Espie and Walter Reed Army Institute of Research clinical research psychologist Amy Adler. The conversation was moderated by HBHI’s Michael Darden, associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School.

The main asset of a business is its people, without whom organizations could not function. As such, employers are naturally motivated to invest in their workers. But how should they go about improving the health of employees while also improving the company’s bottom line?

As a sleep researcher and co-founder of Big Health, a company whose mission is to help bring millions of people back to good mental health by providing safe and effective non-drug alternatives for most common mental health conditions, Colin A. Espie suggests that business leaders should first identify their deeper motivations.

“The terminology that's often used here is ROI, return on investment, when the conversation actually needs to be: What is it that you really care about? What is the variable that matters?”

Rather than enhanced profit or productivity, for instance, employers may prioritize more people-centered outcomes like employee satisfaction or retention. Espie emphasized a wide spectrum of potential motivations for investing in people, not least of which is simply the opportunity to be perceived externally as a good employer.

Meanwhile, as a clinical research psychologist at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Amy Adler is interested in thinking about how the lessons learned in that context might apply to corporations and organizations.

The armed services have a clear motivation for improving members’ health as the success of their operations rely on each individual being physically able to do the job and withstand the rigors of military operations. That’s no small feat when the health of the American public has for years been in crisis.

“The problems that you see in the larger U.S. society are not somehow screened out when people enter into military service. And yet, this organization—which has then taken on these people and has this psychological and actual contract with them—also bears responsibility.”

The concerns around mental health when it comes to the military are by now well-known, both in terms of handling the stress of combat and also in the rates of depression and anxiety. This has led to the U.S. military investing in research to address one of their most desired outcomes: preventing deaths by suicide. Adler also has found that approaching the topic of mental health entirely differently can engage otherwise reticent service members.

“One way that's very effective and culturally consistent for us is we talk about, ‘Hey, you may not need this for yourself, but your battle buddy might need this.’ So there's a great deal of willingness to listen in because they understand the implicit responsibility to support their battle buddies and that they're mutually interdependent.”

Interdependence was a recurring theme of the conversation. Espie described the relationship between employees and employers as a mutual contract that requires each party to take responsibility for their part of the equation.

“From my perspective, the best way to approach this is very much about how you enable somebody to take an opportunity to look after their own health rather than to make it a didactic thing,” said Espie. “I would encourage organizations, at all levels, to think about this as a partnership. Not a kind of directing people to things just as a public communication or science but as an active engagement in self-care promotion.”

He also suggested that organizations can work to lower the bar to participation by having a range of offerings that are both accessible to people and intrinsically non-threatening. One surprisingly powerful entry point to deeper conversations about health is the topic of sleep.

“We have seen success, for example, with a survey sent out around to employees asking, ‘Hey, how are you sleeping? Do you need any help with your sleep?’ Because that is a kind of call to action that's actually interesting and not particularly threatening for people.”

Espie suggested that questions about sleep can serve as a Trojan Horse into asking deeper questions about an individual’s mental health.

“As you go further, it can become, ‘Hey, any dependencies you need help with? How's your mood? How's your weight management going? You still going to the gym?’”

A positive factor helping the success of these efforts is that employer and employee incentives are ultimately aligned towards the goal of an individual’s good health. The hard work is establishing what Espie calls “the duty of care,” a shared responsibility of both parties that begins at the top of the org chart.

“In the end, l think it's down to leadership rather than management. We need really good leaders in industry, in all organizations, because leadership is about doing the right things while management is about doing things well,” said Espie. “I think sometimes we have a lot of management but we’re not necessarily doing the right things. So people spending a lot of time kind of doing things that are kind of half right, and that's where we see a lot of failure.”

Go deeper on this topic with HBHI’s 'Conversations on the Business of Health' webinar from Oct. 24. Watch it here.