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Well-being healthcare leaders' guide

Six building blocks for a workplace well-being cultureA healthcare leader's guide

_{Insights Series - issue 56}

Article authors: Richard Safeer (Healthcare workforce well-being expert) | Julia Rosa | André Steinbuss
Reading time: 9 minutes

What you will learn in this article

A strong well-being culture is a core responsibility of healthcare organizations and an essential foundation for workforce resilience, organizational performance, and safe, high-quality care. Richard Safeer, Chief Medical Director of Employee Health and Well-being at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore, offers a practical framework for embedding well-being into everyday culture.

As staff shortages persist and burnout rates remain high, healthy work culture is a differentiator that strengthens retention, operational stability, and long-term performance.

On this page

"Most people don’t know what a workplace culture of health is. And if you think you know, it’s probably a different definition than the person next to you."

Richard Safeer, MD

Chief Medical Director of Employee Health and Well-being at
Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore

Key workforce challenges to address

Close the
workforce gap

The World Health Organization projects a shortfall of 11 million health workers by 2030,¹ across countries at every level of socioeconomic development.

More affluent communities and countries are also affected. The causes are complex, yet the core challenges for providers remain recruitment and retention.

Reduce healthcare
worker burnout

Burnout is a growing problem affecting up to half of healthcare workers globally.²

Healthcare worker burnout is rising globally. In 2024, almost half of all U.S. physicians suffered symptoms of burnout.²

Realize sustainable healthcare

Well-being and workplace culture are key elements when integrating the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into healthcare institutions sustainability programs.

As the 2030 SDG deadline approaches, providers embed SDGs in sustainability efforts, prioritizing well‑being and workplace culture. SDG3 needs a healthy, resilient workforce to sustain health systems, while SDG8 calls for fair, safe, and supportive work conditions.

Create a supportive
workplace

Supportive workplace conditions can help employees suffering from mental health challenges.

Mental health difficulties are half as prevalent among doctors and nurses with frequent social support from colleagues and supervisors (17% vs 51% in those with no social support).³

The human and financial case for healthcare workforce well-being

Addressing workforce challenges requires strengthening healthcare working conditions to improve recruitment and retention—impacting both staff and financial well-being.

Richard Safeer, together with his colleague Judd Allen, has identified six factors that can serve as the foundation for a workplace culture of well-being and support healthcare worker retention.⁵

This evidence-based framework offers a structured way for leaders to influence behavior, align priorities, and embed health into the daily life of their workplace and employees. Healthcare organizations, such as Johns Hopkins Medicine, have leveraged this practical guidance to establish and maintain a culture of well-being.

The six building blocks for a workplace well-being culture

This practical framework can help you foster workforce sustainability and embed well-being into your institution’s culture.

Culture connection points

Peer support

Establishment of norms

A positive social climate

Shared values

Leadership engagement

Culture connection points
Formal and informal organizational practices that link culture with daily actions.

1. Shared values

In many large healthcare organizations, the well-being of employees is frequently overshadowed by the pursuit of patient satisfaction, financial performance, or technological progress. However, there is clear evidence that building a culture centered on employee well‑being can drive broader organizational success, including measurable gains in patient safety, staff retention, and profitability.

: An organization’s values define how decisions are made, behaviors are modeled, and resources are prioritized.
Values must be clearly defined and embraced by those at every level of the organization. They should also be communicated frequently throughout the organization, ideally in a way that is easily remembered and repeatable.

2. A positive social climate

A strong social climate is foundational to a happy, healthy, and productive workplace. Sustainable collaboration and trust can support staff well-being more effectively than a fragmented social climate.

As with shared values, the benefits of a positive social climate often translate directly into business benefits including increased employee retention, higher trust, greater employee collaboration and resilience, and improved problem-solving and efficiency. Employees with social support are less likely to get sick, and likely to recover more quickly from illness. There is even evidence suggesting that the absence of social connectedness increases our health risks as much as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.⁶

What opportunities do we offer employees to socialize?
What processes do we have in place for new hires to quickly feel like they are part of the team?
Do we treat all voices with equal respect?

3. Establishment of norms

The behaviors that feel “normal” at work strongly influence how people act—and ultimately define an organization’s culture. In the workplace, norms shape whether employees feel comfortable taking a lunch break or feel pressure to answer emails after work hours.

: For instance, when teams consistently take lunch breaks, employees are more likely to step away from their desks. If a team frequently answers emails in the evening, employees may feel pressure to do the same. Changing norms requires persistence, and progress depends on alignment across teams and leaders—but even incremental changes can gradually reset expectations.
: At Johns Hopkins, they successfully shifted norms around food and beverages by eliminating oversized sugary drinks, pricing water lower than soda, marking healthy drinks and placing them at eye level, and limiting soda to 20% of available options. Healthy beverages also became the default at meetings and events, with only a few exceptions. Changes like these send a consistent message: personal choice continues to be respected, but healthier choices are actively encouraged as part of the norm.

4. Culture connection points

Culture connection points influence the actions of employees and can help to reinforce behavior that contributes to health and well-being. These touchpoints, such as communication, storytelling, and policy, show up in everyday practices like cafeteria pricing or how meeting agendas are structured.

: Culture connection points represent the confluence of employee experience with employee well-being. There are a dozen different types that can be intentionally used to influence employee behavior and attitudes.
Positive connection points can consist of inspirational communication or authentic stories from colleagues and leadership—encouraging motivation and resonating more deeply than statistics. Furthermore, policies help to provide structure and continuity by embedding health into formal business practice.

5. Peer support

Few employees can achieve their well-being goals on their own. Organizations that foster strong peer support—with encouragement, trust, and shared accountability—maintain an environment that helps to fulfill this need.

: It is most effective when employees with shared goals engage in open and transparent spaces, practicing skills such as listening, goal setting, and offering encouragement. Over time, strong peer support helps to embed well-being into everyday culture and builds lasting momentum within the team.
: The Healthy at Hopkins Champions Program mobilizes employees across their 42,000-person workforce to promote health within their teams, making it possible to address problems not only with managers but also with peers. In some situations, an employee may not feel comfortable raising an issue with a manager. A peer, however, can often provide a safer and more understanding environment in which issues can be raised. Hopkins Champions act as role models, guide colleagues to available resources, and provide feedback from the ground level. They meet monthly with the well-being office and some are trained in tools such as HeartMath®, a mindfulness practice that connects positive thinking with heart-focused breathing. With this kind of peer-to-peer support, Johns Hopkins ensures that well-being is not just a top-down initiative but embedded into everyday routines and daily culture.

6. Leadership engagement

Leadership engagement is the fuel that powers all the building blocks. Leaders shape what is prioritized, how teams interact, and which behaviors are modeled. Their influence extends across shared values, social climate, norms, peer support, and culture connection points.

When leaders openly prioritize well-being—through governance, role modeling, and structural support—they send a clear message that well-being matters and is an organizational priority. Visible role modeling during the workday and even brief well-being exercises during team meetings can make well-being tangible for employees. Leaders who show vulnerability by acknowledging their own challenges foster trust, strengthen social bonds, and create conditions for a healthier workplace culture. As Dr. Safeer notes, “a leader needs to be a role model for well-being. If it’s not visible, say they meditate during lunch, they must then communicate that to their team.”

How do you support your team members in leading a healthy and balanced lifestyle?
When and how do you bring up the topic of well-being within your team?
In what ways do you embody and visibly demonstrate the healthy habits and well-being practices you encourage your team to follow?

"True, sustainable impact requires embedding well-being into the organizational culture."

Richard Safeer, MD

Chief Medical Director of Employee Health and Well-being at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore

Download full publication (pdf) 4.19 MB

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About the authors

Richard Safeer, MD

Chief Medical Director of Employee Health and Well-being, Johns Hopkins Medicine

Richard Safeer is a leading expert on workplace well-being culture and organizational health. At Johns Hopkins Medicine, he leads the Healthy at Hopkins strategy to embed well-being throughout the organization. He co-developed a framework for workplace well-being culture identifying six essential building blocks and expanding it into a practical guide for building healthier, more resilient organizations in his book “A Cure for the Common Company” (Wiley, 2023). He continues to share insights on workplace well-being through LinkedIn, his website richardsafeer.com, speaking engagements and podcast appearances.

Richard Safeer, MD

Chief Medical Director of Employee Health and Well-being, Johns Hopkins Medicine

This thought leadership publication is part of the Siemens Healthineers Insights Series. It provides ideas and practical solutions on "Healthcare workforce". For more Insights, please visit siemens-healthineers.com/insights-series.

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Did this information help you?

WHO. Health workforce [Internet]. [date unknown] [cited Sept 9, 2025].

Medscape. Physician Mental Health & Well-Being Report 2025 [Internet] 2025 [cited Nov 3, 2025].

Mental Health of Nurses and Doctors survey in the European Union, Iceland and Norway. Copenhagen: WHO Regional Office for Europe; 2025

Han S, Shanafelt TD, Sinsky CA, Awad KM, Dyrbye LN, Fiscus LC, Trockel M, Goh J. Estimating the attributable cost of physician burnout in the United States. Annals of Internal Medicine. 2019;170(11):784‒90.

Safeer R, Allen J. Defining a culture of health in the workplace. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. 2019;61(11):863‒7.

Holt-Lunstad J, Smith TB, Baker M, Harris T, Stephenson D. Loneliness and social isolation as risk factors for mortality: a meta-analytic review. Perspectives on Psychological Science. 2015;10(2):227‒37.