Workplace Prevention in Practice Pt.4: Building Resilient and Healthy Work Environments

In this final episode, Associate Professors Goodman Sibeko and Nadine Harker shift the focus from individual-level responses to the organisational systems that shape wellbeing at work. The conversation looks at how workplaces can create environments that reduce stressors and promote healthier behaviours before problems escalate.

Prof. Harker highlights the role of leadership commitment, ongoing wellness initiatives, and policies that prioritise prevention rather than once-off interventions. She also discusses challenges such as cost, organisational culture, and the need for clear pathways for referral and reintegration when employees return from treatment.

A reflective close to the series, drawing together key lessons for organisations, policymakers, and practitioners working to embed prevention in real-world settings.

Featured Voices 

Host – A/Prof. Goodman Sibeko 

ISSUP Global Scientific Advisor.

Head of Addiction Psychiatry, University of Cape Town.

LinkedIn: goodmansibeko

Twitter/X: @profgsibeko

Guest – A/Prof. Nadine Harker

Specialist Scientist in the Alcohol, Tobacco and other Drug Research Unit of the South African Medical Research Council. 

Time Stamps

A/Prof. Goodman Sibeko (00:00)
Thank you everyone for coming back and joining us for this final episode in the series with Dr. Nadine Harker. I'm Goodman Sibeko the ISSUP Global Scientific Advisor and your host. You can find me on LinkedIn and all the socials at the handle profgsibeko. You can find ISSUP on LinkedIn, X and Blue Sky. Just type in ISSUP and you'll find us easily. This time we're gonna be focusing on promoting systemic wellbeing to reduce risk factors for harmful substance use and stress-related conditions. Nadine, thank you for coming back. Thank you for sticking the surge with us. We really appreciate your expertise here. So having said that, what does a resilient work environment mean in today's context?

A/Prof. Nadine Harker (00:39)
So Prof. Goodman, one of the things I want to say, resilient workplace has to move away from the primacy of the fix. I came across this by Abraham Maslow, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. But Albert Einstein said, we can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.
And this is where resilience for me comes in, that you have to be evolving the whole time because that is what the workplace, that is what life is at. I think organisations need to evolve themselves constantly and build up resilience as things change over time. For example, we know what happened with COVID. I don't have to go there.

A/Prof. Goodman Sibeko (01:24)
That's great, Nadine. I really like that idea because we, especially in the context of health practitioners and managers, we're oriented around paternalistically going around and fixing. It's really important that we approach things from a collaborative and responsive fashion. So thank you for that. Do you feel that there's a way that we can design workplaces in a way that reduces stress and fosters well-being and integration?

A/Prof. Nadine Harker (01:50)
Certainly, there are many perspectives and this has been written about and adopted by some organisations. For instance, I think we underplay in the workplace the importance of social capital. I came across some work and I forget the name of the author, but it was found that joining and participating in one group cuts your odds of dying over the next year and half. Joining two groups cuts it by three quarters. So within the workplace, do we have or do we put emphasis in our policies? And I'm speaking about our universal policies that aren't strengthening social capital, because what this speaks to is teamwork. So be intentional about again through the avenues I spoke about earlier, social capital within your organisations. 
And this can happen through these little, the walking groups as I've mentioned. And it also really inculcates this idea of norms of reciprocity. I keep on forgetting how to say that word, but you know what I mean, reciprocity.

The other thing attached to that would be social networks. And again, in workplaces, we don't emphasise that enough. people influence one another and are influenced by one another. We often speak this when it comes to adolescents and peer and peer influences, but the same actually happens with and amongst adults.

And there was an amazing study done around obesity and these social networks and how obesity in the US and how if I try and lose weight and I get my next door friend to help and the next one gets the next one to sort out the exercise and eat less, how there are better health outcomes for that social network in its entirety. But that can also be done within the workplace is building social networks for colleagues. And some thought would have to be given and innovation, but I think the resilience part of it is that for social networks, social capital within the organization, that is where discussions with employees can come up and they will come up with innovative ways in which to address this.

Again, I'm going to use my own workplace as an example because I'm really proud of it. Out of social networks and social capital, we now, from having nothing, we have a netball team, we have a soccer team that compete with other universities now within our Cape Town area, which suggests that these things are possible.

And the health outcomes obviously are better there. It promotes a culture of health, a culture of taking pride in one's health.
It also fosters the idea of group wellness. So the culture of enabling good because you work within a team setting. And that is in essence what we've been discussing today is how to promote health within the group concept. One of the other things that I've also come across over the years is team-based prevention. And many workplaces, you'd find that groups of people work in teams. 

And what we found specifically with substance use and teams is if we are working in close proximity on a daily basis, and one of us in the team has a substance use issue, the team generally tries to cover or tries to cover that up, or they enable the behaviour of the individual that has the substance use problem or that has a mental health condition because they work in a team issue and a team set up and there's cohesion. And once a prevention or an awareness program tackles and introduce the concept of nudging small encouragements within a team from one another to say that something's off, these are the resources, you can also adapt and change a culture within that. So through team-based prevention is what they call it. That is nudging one another towards health, be it for substance use issues, be it for mental health issues, be it for let us lose 50 kilograms in the next three. Team-based prevention, team cohesion, those are critical factors that are sometimes overlooked within the bigger scheme of things. Then, of course, I can also mention with that, within a team, but within a unit even, is micro daily interactions.

Once an organization understands that there are certain things that we recognise as concerns and issues and our overriding aim is to push people towards health, micro-interactions become important and there's untapped potential there. And then of course, leadership ripple effect. I think I spoke about it earlier.

And that is healthy modelling. That is role modelling through healthy behaviour. And that is leadership adhering to the policy that was or is developed around these issues. Once organisations and employees see leaders engaging, there's an increased likelihood of them engaging, particularly if it's heart-centred. And I've just come through a course that spoke about servant leadership and so forth that holds ground in all of this as well. So if I could flag that there. Support health promotion programs, of course, but instead of just supporting them, if the leadership are part and parcel of that and are seen as active and co-collaborators or collaborators within those, that becomes really important.

One thing that I've also found in my work over time is that organisations want to see, and again, it loops back to the whole question around prevention versus treatment and return on investment and so forth. So one of the things, if an organization right now, as we speak, does not have nothing, they have nothing, they are just an organization, they have substance use problems, the first point of departure for them would be to probably do a workplace assessment using certain standardised metrics, perhaps. Do a survey on employee well-being to first understand mine HR data on absenteeism and turnover. Mine data on productivity and performance, even if you have to pay a small fee even to a university to do these, to get the data for you if you don't have the capacity. To start doing that and an assessment of the organisational culture. 

Once that assessment is done, the needs assessment, it will give you a scorecard on what is happening within your organization and having an external organization obviously neutralises the idea that the organization is out to get me and I won't say anything in case I get fired. It takes that out of the equation, but it really gives the organization a scope of what is happening in their space. And once they have that, they can then begin on an intensive drive of training and development, on policy development setting every system that they can based on. 

And there are helpful documents for this, Prof. Goodman, if I may mention. The International Labour Organization has excellent documents. The UNODC has excellent documents around workplace substance use and mental health prevention and how to systematically set this up. The Canadians have excellent documents. That is, in essence, what would be needed. And the last part I've mentioned is just really if the organization has nothing and they need to quantify or make a case for why they would want that. And have feed, what do they call them? Feedback channels and loops all the time throughout. 

But I really like the that just the shuffling as a start in the mindset from the I in illness to the we in wellness, if I could just close off on that, because that already does a lot for destigmatising substances and mental health issues in the workplace.

A/Prof. Goodman Sibeko (10:29)
Thanks Nadine. So all of these interventions would have, as we've discussed, been put in place following a series of workshopping discussions, evaluation of needs and resources. I can't help thinking at the back of my mind whether there needs to be an element of social skills training because, you know, helping folks understand what it means to be social in the workplace, how to still retain your boundaries and be safe. maybe you could think about how you incorporate that in your response to my next question, which is what role do wellness and mental health days play in prevention? And again, how does that tie in with social skills training, with creating safe social interactions environment?

A/Prof. Nadine Harker (11:11)
Presumably you're speaking about the awareness days that happen once a year and so forth. So those are days that are important because it allows for screening and brief interventions. Screening may not always brief interventions, but early screening. And they are once off once per year, but they cannot happen in isolation from anything else there needs to be an add-on. So if an individual is screened on a wellness day for something, the organization has to be proactive into getting the individual into the next phase of assistance. So that is absolutely critical. 

Organisations ideally should have an occupational health and safety office that also screens individuals for various elements. And that could be quarterly. That is separate to the wellness days, because you have awareness and wellness days. Wellness days are people don't know where they can find resources. 

And that, to me, is what awareness should be about where to go for help, how to get it, what do I need to do, et cetera, which is different to having a separate service, that would allow me to engage a little bit deeper based on what has emerged from my awareness and that is ongoing. that is why I'm saying having a prevention program in your workplace means that you are getting a tattoo on your face. 

Social skills training, budgeting, legal issues, coping with a child that uses substances, a family member that has mental health issues, those can be done on a weekly lunchtime basis every single, every second week, every week. And on teams, you don't even have to have group where staff can listen into with appropriate pathways. Some of those can even Prof. Goodman, have little screeners or little tests in where you in your office, in your lunchtime can do a little screener and a flag comes up that you may be at risk for something or the other. And through that, you will be given an idea of how to access, obviously all personalised and private and very much anonymous. 

A lot of these things happen anonymously until you go and actively seek your help. But it has to be a universal framework, strategic that has to develop be developed by the organization and then pull through remembering that it's a long-term investment, remembering that you will have a return on your investment in the long term, because less people will be in harm's way. And not only for substance use, not only for mental health, but all the intersecting conditions that we have that are linked to mental health and substance use.

A/Prof. Goodman Sibeko (14:08)
Nadine, that point about return on investment is so important. So how do we measure the success? How do we measure the success of these healthy workspace, resilience building initiatives in a way that makes us say we've definitely made a return here or we haven't and we need to try something else. How do we measure?

A/Prof. Nadine Harker (14:25)
You need a health economist for that, Prof. Goodman, to come in and help you.

A/Prof. Goodman Sibeko (14:29)
So maybe that's what ISSUP needs to do is bring a health economist next to have this discussion.

A/Prof. Nadine Harker (14:33)
You need that, but mean low-hanging fruit would just be to look at absenteeism records, to look at the number of disciplinary hearings, where substance use or mental health was the misconduct, to look at exit interviews, so what you have at hand, number of accidents, number of adverse issues that happened within a workplace. So you could start off with that and compare it to perhaps two years before. And that's how some organisations have done it in the past.

A/Prof. Goodman Sibeko (15:11)
Nadine, you've been a wonderful guest. On that note, I really want to thank you for spending this time with us, sharing your expertise to the listeners. This is the last episode of a four series podcast where the first one was just us getting to know Professor Nadine Harker. We then discussed how to create a culture of prevention in the workplace. We then looked at some strategies for early identification and support. 

We then looked in our podcast episode about policy compliance and ethical practice. And this one was really focused on building resilient and healthy work environments. We really hope you've enjoyed this series and that you've learned something that you'll join us for our next podcast. Take care.

Thank you for spending this time with us. We hope you enjoy that as much as we do. Be sure to hop on over to our website, isop.net, where you'll find information on how to sign up for free membership. Take care and catch you on the next one.

About the ISSUP Exchange 

The ISSUP Exchange podcast series explores the evolution of responses to the challenges of substance use—from research and training to ethics, quality standards and evidence-based practice. We connect the dots so you can see the big picture. 

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About ISSUP 

ISSUP is a global network that unites, connects, and shares knowledge across the substance use prevention, treatment, and recovery support workforce. Our mission is to make our members’ work as effective as possible—by providing access to training, resources, and a vibrant professional community.