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Do you have a good job, one that's satisfying and not too stressful, where your boss and co-workers treat you with respect?

If you answered yes, consider yourself lucky. That's because a good job – where there is open communication, a sense of trust and fairness and a well-defined workload – can contribute to your good health.

A healthy work environment relies on healthy, positive relationships among everyone who works there, notes Dr. Martin Shain, a senior scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, at the University of Toronto.

Seven key ingredients of a healthy workplace

Dr. Martin Shain outlines that a healthy, safe place of employment is one in which you:

1. Have a clear understanding of your role and responsibilities and perceive that your skills match the job



2. Have a say in your job and how you do it and feel that the work demands placed upon you are reasonable and fair



3. Feel respected and valued for your contribution and being rewarded, with praise and recognition, for work well done



4. Feel that the people you work with, including managers, are trustworthy



5. Feel reasonably secure in your job



6. Believe that your employer takes every reasonable precaution to protect the health and safety of employees and that he or she has a genuine concern for the well-being of employees



7. Feel that you are part of a common purpose.

Not all jobs are healthy ones

Since most employees spend about two-thirds of their waking hours working, it's well worth considering your job from the perspective of your own health.

Some workplaces are considerably more stressful than others. Workplace stress can make people sick due to factors such as poor communication, job insecurity and unsafe working conditions. In particular, high-demand jobs with low control and/or low reward are associated with significantly higher rates of anxiety, depression, heart disease, alcohol abuse, infectious diseases, back pain and some cancers as well as an increased incidence of workplace injury and interpersonal conflict.

Sense of control over working conditions can make a difference

Clearly, a good job is about a whole lot more than the size of your paycheque. The type of job you have, and the control that you feel that have over your work can also affect how you perceive your own health. A Health Canada paper, co-authored with the Canadian Fitness and Lifestyle Research Institute, called Influencing Employee Health notes that, "all aspects of the social environment at work appear to be related to health perceptions." According to the report, people who experience stress because of difficult work relationships and poor management practices are less likely to rate their health as excellent. Poor management practices can include lack of feedback, lack of fair treatment, harassment and discrimination.

Neighbour at Work principle reduces stress, increases health

"When people at work behave as neighbours, we see a tremendous reduction in stress and an increase in personal health and organizational productivity," says Dr. Shain, who is the founder and director of the Neighbour @ Work Centre™, which uses the neighbour at work model as the standard for reasonable conduct at work.

It doesn't matter whether you're the CEO or the new person in the shipping department: everyone should subscribe to the neighbour at work ideal regardless of rank, says Dr. Shain. After all, he adds, the relationships you have with people at work are materially no different than the relationships you have with the person sitting next to you in the movie theatre or driving the car beside yours on the highway or living on the other side of your backyard fence. "We all need to be treated and to treat others, as neighbours," says Dr. Shain.

How does a good neighbour behave?

According to Dr. Shain, a good neighbour is someone who:

• predicts how his or her words and actions will affect others



• recognizes the rights and interests of others



• expects to be treated the same way.

Take the test and learn more about being a good neighbour at work.

To learn more about the Neighbour@Work approach,and to find out how healthy your work culture is, check out the self-assessment tool that is part of the Neighbour@Work™ approach. It's a first step to making your workplace a healthy neighbourhood.