Huffington Post has implemented several wellness programs to decrease stress and increase productivity in the workplace. These include restricting cellphone use during work hours and introducing a cash incentive program for employees who get 7+ hours of sleep per night. Since implementing these programs, Huffington Post has seen a 7% reduction in healthcare costs and a 62-minute improvement in productivity. By limiting distractions and encouraging better sleep, the company aims to reduce emotional tensions that arise from conflicts between work and personal life and from lack of rest.

1. WEllness in the
Workplace
Arianna Huffington Recipe for a
positive workplace
By: Emily Gilbert

2. Promoting health and wellness
Health and Wellness is the topic of
priority at Fortune’s inaugural
Brainstorm Health conference
Arianna Huffington, the editor-and-
chief of Huffington Post and guest
speaker at the health conference,
discussed how wellness in the
workplace is being incorporated at

3. How is she
prompting
health?
By restricting the
use of cellphones
while working and
making sure that
workers get a
goodnights rest.

4. BUT...does this actually work?
According to Huffington
Post, “There’s some
disagreement about
whether corporate
wellness programs, in
their current iterations,
are actually all that
effective (Mukherjee par.

5. The
Number
s
In the first year, they
found a 7% reduction in
health care costs and a
62-minute improvement
in productivity,
“That was really game-
changing, and a lot of
companies paid
attention,” said
Huffington

6. Along with these numbers...
Huffington is introducing
an opt-in cash incentive
program that would pay
$300 to workers who can
verify that they got seven
or more hours of sleep for
20 nights a month.
“What I’ve heard more
about when we talk to the
employees is not the $300,”
said Huffington. “It was the
fact that the CEO of the
company was telling them
that getting enough sleep
was good for the bottom
line, that there was no

7. Process of emotions in the
workplace
Ideal
Models of organizational life see the
workplace of logic and rationality.
We manage conflict/change by thinking
logically about situations at hand and
continue to be productive
Reality
The ideal slowly becomes an inaccurate
description the more someone works in an
organization
We typically make choices on the job based
on personal gut feeling, rather than facts
and figures.

8. The
Unfortunat
e Reality….
Unfortunately…
Most research confirms that
organizations explicitly try to
control emotions through training
and employees manuals
Example:
“Under no circumstance should a
customer ever wonder if you are
having a bad day. Your troubles
should be masked by a smile
(Miller 198).”

9. What are the causes of emotions
in the workplace?
Researchers are starting to look at
relationships in the workplace as the
main force of emotions.
This research is called emotion at work

10. Reasons for emotional relational
tension an in organization
Problem Cause
The tension between the
public and the private in
work relationships
Private and public are
often in conflict in
organizational life
Relational networks and
emotional “buzzing”
Emotions (or rumors)
tend to spread like
wildfire in the workplace

11. Reasons for emotional relational tension
an in organization (Continued)
Problem Cause
Conflicting allegiance Lack of distinction
between what’s best for
the individual and what’s
best for the organization
Emotional rights and
obligations at work
Disruption of what is fair,
right and just within and
organization

12. happens if
emotions
are not
resolved in
the
workplace?
Unresolved
emotions
ultimately
leads to…..
Burn-
out Stress

13. Emotion as Part of the Job
Scholars, like Dennis Mumby and Linda
Putnam, ask organization to begin looking at
emotional life as its central focus. They believe
that paying attention to emotions might lead to
more understanding in the workplace
This is called:
Bounded emotionality

14. Bounded Emotionality at the
Huffington Post
Huffington began looking closely at emotions in the
workplace and its root causes (this is called Bounded
emotionality).
They came to conclusion that cell phone use and lack of
sleep causes most of issues of emotional stress within their
particular work environment

15. Decrease in emotional tension at Huffington post
The lack of cellphone use:
limits the amount of Tension between the public and the private in work
relationships by limiting
and
Limits Relational networks and emotional “buzzing”
Because
It restricted the amount of private information an employee was taking
in while on the job (i.e. weren’t checking personal Facebook
statuses, couldn’t check private text messages, etc.)

16. Decrease in emotional tension at the
Huffington post
If an employee is forced to not
pay attention to their personal
life, the productivity of their work
will increase
Huffington post believes that
work life and personal life should
be separate. And (surprisingly)
employees are responding
positively to this concept!

17. How huffington post is
decreasing burnout and stress
Research has shown
that a lack of sleep
causes
Lack of sleep exacts
a toll on perception
and judgment.
Memory and Cognitive
Impairment

18. How Huffington post is decreasing
burnout and stress
Huffington post believes that
encouraging good sleeping habits
causes less emotional outbreaks in the
workplace
Research has shown that the more
sleep you get, the more alert you are to
the environment around you
The more alert you are, the more
productive you are
All of these factors ultimately leave less
More of this
Less of this

19. Questions
Could Huffington’s idea work in an educational setting?
Will there not be a need for incentives in the future in order to promote well
being?
Does restricting cellphone use cross a line with personal freedom? Isn’t this
adding more of a hierarchy structure to the workplace? Wouldn’t this cause
more tension?

20. Work Cited
Mukherjee, S. (2016, November 2). Arianna Huffington Shares Her Recipe for a Productive Workforce. Retrieved
November 8, 2016, from http://time.com/business/page/2/