Improving Your Business Through a Culture of Health
Improve the well-being of your company while increasing revenue
Renowned Harvard faculty give business leaders the strategies and tools they need to improve the well-being of their employees and transform their businesses.
1-3 hours a week
What You'll Learn
While the United States is one of the world’s wealthiest nations, it is far from the healthiest. Our nation’s burden of disease affects businesses every day, from sick employees and families reducing productivity and increasing costs, to product recalls and failures, to environmental scandals such as toxic chemical emissions harming communities and reputations.
Named Runner Up for Best Online Program of 2018 by ProEd, this HarvardX course is presented by leading faculty from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Harvard Business School and will provide businesses with strategies, tactics, and tools to gain a competitive advantage by implementing a Culture of Health to address these issues and stay ahead. Embracing a Culture of Health can improve your employees’ well-being as well as the health of your consumers, your communities, and the environment. A Culture of Health can help you to reduce costs, increase revenues and profits, and enhance your company’s reputation.
For example, employees who work in a healthy and safe environment spend less time away from work for health reasons, decreasing interruptions, while increasing output and employee retention. When employees and customers spend less on health care, they have more disposable income to spend on non–health care needs, boosting the economy, and benefiting your business.
Strengthening your business using the Culture of Health approach will enhance the greater good by promoting well-being—benefitting society, your business and employees, your customers and communities, and you.
The course will be delivered via edX and connect learners around the world. By the end of the course, participants will be able to:
- The business case to adopt a Culture of Health
- The ways you are already involved in health, whether you realize it or not
- How to implement a Culture of Health in your business to gain a competitive advantage
- How to reduce costs, increase revenues, and enhance your business’s reputation using a Culture of Health
- Real-world examples of Culture of Health implementation that could apply to your business
Course Outline
Why should business care about good health? See how your business connects to health and well-being, and learn the Four Pillars framework.
Lead Faculty:
- Howard Koh (HSPH, HKS) and Amy Edmondson (HBS)
Guest Faculty:
- John Quelch, Dean of the School of Business Administration and Vice Provost for Executive Education, University of Miami
Guest Speaker:
- Mike Critelli, Retired Chief Executive Officer, Pitney Bowes
Case Study:
- Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines
Why the health and well-being of your consumers and customers matter to the health and well-being of your business.
Lead Faculty:
- John McDonough (HSPH) and Jose Alvarez (HBS)
Guest Speaker:
- Troyen Brennan, Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer, CVS Health
Case Study:
- H-E-B Creating a Movement to Reduce Obesity in Texas
Why the health, safety, and well-being of your employees is about a lot more than just dollars and cents.
Lead Faculty:
- Glorian Sorensen (HSPH) and Robert Huckman (HBS)
Guest Speakers:
- Mike Critelli, Retired Chief Executive Officer, Pitney Bowes
- Dave Lagerstrom, President and Chief Executive Officer, TURCK Inc.
- Nico Pronk, President, HealthPartners Institute; Chief Science Officer, HealthPartners, Inc.
- Paul Terry, President and Chief Executive Officer, Health Enhancement Research Organization
Why caring about the well-being of your host communities is vital for your business success.
Lead Faculty:
- Kasisomayajula Vishwanath (HSPH) and Raffaella Sadun (HBS)
Guest Speakers:
- David Barash, Executive Director, Global Health Portfolio; Chief Medical Officer, GE Foundation
- Lauren Smith, Managing Director, FSG
- Jonathan Isaacson, President and Chief Operating Officer, Gemline, Inc.
- Dan Rivera, Mayor of Lawrence, Massachusetts
- Case Study: Business and Community Partnerships for Health in Lawrence, Massachusetts
How addressing your environmental footprint can make or break your business.
Lead Faculty:
- Gina McCarthy (HSPH) and Cass Sunstein (HLS, HKS)
Does any of this involve Y-O-U? As a colleague, a spouse, a parent, a neighbor, and a leader? Y-E-S!
Lead Faculty:
- Elizabeth Frates (HMS)
Guest Speaker:
- John Ratey, Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
- Walter Willett, Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Case Study:
- David Storto, Chief Executive Officer, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital
How can your business measure your results in leading for better health and well-being?
Lead Faculty:
- Eileen McNeely (HSPH) and George Serafeim (HBS)
Guest Faculty:
- Tyler VanderWeele, Professor of Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Case Study:
- Flourishing Index
Tools and examples of leading for improvement and change in your business.
Lead Faculty:
- Sara Singer (Stanford University) and Rakesh Khurana (HBS, Harvard College)
Guest Speaker:
- Drew Faust, President Emeritus, Harvard University
Case Study:
- PepsiCo
Practical ways to get started and to sustain progress in your business.
Lead Faculty:
- Howard Koh (HSPH, HKS) and Amy Edmondson (HBS)
Guest Faculty:
- Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Ernest L. Arbuckle Professor of Business, Harvard Business School
Guest Speakers:
- Byron Austin, Director, Social Impact and Responsibility North America at Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries Ltd.
- Martin Lemos, Deputy Director at National Young Farmers Coalition
- Mark Tulay, Program Director, Strategic Investor Initiative, CECP
Your Instructors
Howard Koh
Harvey V. Fineberg Professor of the Practice of Public Health Leadership, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; Member of Faculty, Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University
Amy Edmondson
Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management, Harvard Business School
John McDonough
Professor of Public Health Practice and Director of the Center for Executive and Continuing Professional Education, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard University
Jose Alvarez
Senior Lecturer of Business Administration, Harvard Business School, Harvard University
Glorian Sorensen
Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard University
Robert Huckman
Albert J. Weatherhead III Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School, Harvard University
Kasisomayajula Viswanath
Lee Kum Kee Professor of Health Communication, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard University
Raffaella Sadun
Thomas S. Murphy Associate Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School, Harvard University
Gina McCarthy
Professor of the Practice of Public Health, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard University
Cass Sunstein
Robert Walmsley University Professor, Harvard Law School, Harvard University
Elizabeth Frates
Assistant Clinical Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Spaulding Rehabilitation, Harvard Medical School
Eileen McNeely
Instructor of Exposure, Epidemiology and Risk Program, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard University
George Serafeim
Jakurski Family Associate Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School, Harvard University
Sara Singer
Professor of Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Professor of Organizational Behavior (by courtesy), Stanford Graduate School of Business, Stanford University
Rakesh Khurana
Marvin Bower Professor of Leadership Development, Harvard Business School; Professor of Sociology, Harvard University; Danoff Dean, Harvard College, Harvard University
John Quelch
Dean of the School of Business Administration and Vice Provost for Executive Education, University of Miami
Rosabeth Moss Kanter
Ernest L. Arbuckle Professor of Business Administration, Harvard University
Ways to take this course
When you enroll in this course, you will have the option of pursuing a Verified Certificate or Auditing the Course.
A Verified Certificate costs $219 and provides unlimited access to full course materials, activities, tests, and forums. At the end of the course, learners who earn a passing grade can receive a certificate.
Alternatively, learners can Audit the course for free and have access to select course material, activities, tests, and forums. Please note that this track does not offer a certificate for learners who earn a passing grade.