2. Practical and Societal Implications
In order to better define good practices for SE, it is helpful to take a closer look at the effective interventions included in this
entr
eviewy that had a positive effect on SE work outcomes. In the study by Koolhaas et al., employees were provided with a booklet to assess their career and development opportunities, and they discussed solutions with their supervisors, who were previously trained in providing employee resources
[36][29]. In the study by Hadgraft et al., some valuable work intervention ingredients—coaching, group brainstorming, and support by leaders—might have contributed to building new awareness regarding the workers’ health behavior
[47][30].
WResearche
rs argue that these effective intervention elements have contributed to enhancing specific capabilities among employees, resulting in positive effects on valuable work outcomes. As the valuable work component had positive effects on related outcomes in more than half of the included studies, in line with Sen’s capability approach
[22],
ourthe results suggest that it is essential to address the valuable work component in intervention content to enable an intrinsically valuable work life
[5,61][5][31]. This implication is supported by the recent promising scientific literature that overall underlines the importance of enabling valuable work practices for SE. These practices mainly take shapes in a dialogue-based toolkit
[62,63][32][33]; health and safety monitoring routines
[64][34]; tailormade development programs
[65][35]; the promotion of opportunities and employee development fitted with personal wishes and needs
[66][36]; negotiation and discussion about I-deals and systematic training as well as structured conversation processes and coaches
[67][37]; the improvement of the employee psychological capital
[68][38]; job crafting and continuous sustainable changes
[69][39]; continuous routines of conditions’ assessments and shared action plans
[70][40]; career development discussions as well as regular dialogue and organizational culture
[71][41]; and counseling, coaching, mentoring and motivational interviewing
[60][42]. Therefore, developing capabilities in the form of competencies and health resources should be considered a key action in SE promotion and requires further practical advancement.
It is crucial to consider and conduct intervention process evaluations
[72][43]. The previous literature explains how program failure regarding health outcomes could be related to many factors, such as the incomprehensiveness of interventions or insufficient employee participation
[5,36,73,74][5][29][44][45]. Regarding productivity, the previous literature underlines how this construct is complex to measure, and—regarding intervention effectiveness on productivity outcomes—in some cases, employees do not have low levels of productivity that can be improved through an intervention, or intervention attendance is too low
[75,76][46][47]. Intervention effects, those on outcomes in line with intervention content or not, may be explained with complex mediating and moderating processes
[77][48]. In
ourthe review of
studiresearches, only five out of fourteen studies included an intervention process evaluation
[36,37,41,51,78][29][49][50][51][52]. When the program failed, the
resea
uthorchers reported reasons such as a short duration, a lack of training frequency, an inadequate level of skills, or low adherence to the program
[34,35,39,49,78][53][54][55][56][52]. However, further attention to understanding what happens in the workplace is crucial to orient SE interventions and practices
[79][57].
As this
entr
eviewy points out, SE interventions should simultaneously promote and cover health, productivity, valuable work, and long-term perspective issues through their content. Therefore, the first step toward promoting the interventions’ effectiveness is to consider, at the level of HRM, the possible interrelations among intervention elements that boost productivity, health, and safety in creating transversal capabilities. At the employee level, as employee choices are central in the SE perspective, it is essential to encourage employee participation in intervention planning that is in line with their work life stage, considering the full value that employees can obtain from the intervention
[66][36]. The need to adopt a synergistic and comprehensive perspective of SE is also strongly encouraged because of population aging, technological developments, and uncertain career trajectories
[13]. Additionally, this need has been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which is quickly and increasingly changing the ways of working and competencies required
[80][58]. The pandemic is disrupting people’s careers, health, and finances, making clear the relevance of developing new career and proactive competencies and employability resources according to each life stage
[3]. Within organizations, this implies creating a solid culture of SE. Thus, the COVID-19 pandemic could help clarify the need to address productivity, competencies, and health issues together at work
[26]. As this
entr
eviewy shows, SE interventions still tend to limit their focus to individual conversion factors rather than including organizational factors. Particular attention should also be given to relevant organizational conversion factors, such as employee work-health balance or changing leadership
[26]. Paying attention to these factors could be considered the first step to building an organizational culture of SE.
On the level of national labor policies, developing a participatory culture for SE implies developing active SE policies strongly aligned to workforce needs as well as allocating working hours for the acquirement of new healthy capabilities
[71][41], in line with decent work United Nations’ Sustainability Goal Agenda 2030
[12]. Societies also need to provide adequate incentives to companies for employee retention and plan community-level measures while considering societal, mental, and biological aging
[70][40].