Salutogenesis in the Workplace: Building General Resistance Resources and Sense of Coherence

Companies and work organisations nowadays are dependent on well-trained, highly qualified, and motivated employees. At the same time, the potential of the workforce and its ability to develop have become the subject of a new understanding of health, which encompasses both physical and mental well-being, quality of life, and learning. From a salutogenic perspective, workplace health can be defined as the ability of the workforce to participate and be productive in a sustainable and meaningful way. Implementing a salutogenic approach at work requires keen employee involvement and interdisciplinary collaboration between, e.g., management, HRM, safety, environmental and health professionals. A salutogenic organisation provides personal, social, and environmental resources (general resistance resources) that offer coherent (comprehensible, manageable, and meaningful) working experiences and sustainable organisational outcomes. It promotes the development of the capacities of employees and employers to use these resources. Workplaces can be considered as complex ecological systems. Implementing a salutogenic intervention may be seen as a critical event in the history of a workplace system, leading to new structures of interaction, new resources, and individual, social, and organisational learning. These types of outcomes are therefore of interest when a salutogenic approach in the workplace is being evaluated.