Many workplace practices—long hours, work-family conflict, economic insecurity resulting from irregular hours and layoffs, an absence of job control, and a lack of social support—are as harmful to health and mortality as exposure to second-hand smoke, a known and regulated carcinogen.  We estimate the workplace to be responsible for about 120,000 excess deaths and $180 billion in excess costs annually in the United States, but workplace “exposures” afflict people all over the world.  For instance, overwork is estimated to account for somewhere between 600,000 and 1 million deaths annually in China.  Ironically, many of the practices that contribute to workplace-induced ill health do not benefit employers, either. 

While there has been increasing attention focused on environmental sustainability and measuring companies’ carbon footprints and recycling activities, little attention has been given to human sustainability and the implications for management practices.  We should be as concerned about people as we are about polar bears or endangered species.  Somewhat surprisingly, a single-item measure of self-reported health has prospective predictive power, which means that measuring company effects on human health is easily accomplished.