What is HaWC?

HaWC (noun)

Short for health and well-being committee; a new form of participatory program that gives employees a chance to voice concerns and offer ideas for workplace improvement.

What's a company to do when faced with high turnover among its front-line workforce? One retailer with operations across the U.S. teamed up with researchers from the MIT Institute for Work and Employment Research and the Harvard Center for Work, Health, and Well-Being to develop a program that can save organizations money while improving workers' psychological welfare.

Company leaders were interested in a participatory program that would allow supervisors to learn about sources of stress in the workplace directly from front-line workers and partner with them to develop potential solutions.

That led to the HaWC model, which is designed to address: 

• People's feelings about the work environment
• How work gets done
• Physical safety

Each HaWC is led by two co-leads — one front-line worker and one supervisor — and most committee members are front-line workers.

In HaWC field tests with the retailer, workers' mental health improved within six months, and turnover decreased by 20% over 12 months, “all at a comparatively low cost,” the researchers write. They estimate that achieving such a reduction through wage increases would have required a 1.5% bump in hourly pay.

The research team has published a free step-by-step guide for managers to help them launch their own HaWCs.

What is a workplace health and well-being committee — and why do you need one?