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Creating high-performance work environments where complex issues can be resolved is a major challenge facing managers. In a context of rising psychosocial risks (CNESST, 2025) where only 41% of talent is achieving optimal and sustainable performance (Gartner, 2023), how can the health-performance balance be strengthened?
To achieve this, some organizations are focusing on flexibility by rethinking their HR policies and incorporating choices in terms of when and where to work, the purchase of additional vacation time, access to health and wellness accounts and/or the option of phased retirement.
What if the concept of flexibility were expanded to include the way daily work is organized?
This article provides two examples of expanded flexibility that activate protective factors for health while boosting performance: promoting personalized individual contributions and rethinking ways of working.
First protective factor: Strengths-based management
A natural strength is a way of thinking, feeling or behaving that is authentic and energizing for a person and that leads to their optional functioning, their development and their performance (Forest, 2024). This finding supports the observations of Shawn Achor (2010) that building on a person’s strengths increases their ability to notice possibilities, making them more thoughtful, creative and open.
With 71% of workers performing some work outside the scope of their job descriptions (Deloitte Insights, 2022), job crafting their contributions while factoring in job requirements and their natural strengths encourages performance that is optimal (a contribution expressing their full potential) and sustainable (a contribution that is sustained over time).
So, where should you begin?
Knowing your team
Strengths-based management means ensuring that employees are putting their best foot forward 80% of the time. It’s about organizing work to prioritize in different competencies is a common practice, looking at which competencies energize or drain people makes work more meaningful and fosters excellence (H. Olafsen et al., 2024).
It is therefore essential to look at both proficiency in the required competencies and individual natural strengths, which can be identified using psychometric tests, individual successes (e.g. what does this success reveal about you?) or feedback from colleagues (e.g. what do your colleagues recognize in you?).
Defining and clarifying performance expectations
Setting expectations around performance is a must. When expectations are defined, clearly understood and tailored to individual strengths, people have the potential to experience feelings of autonomy, competence and affiliation (Forest et al., 2022). In contrast, unclear expectations can create needless pressure, inhibit people from taking initiative or cause them to stretch efforts beyond expectations.
Strengths-based management provides the flexibility to move from expectations to mutual understanding. The more people can shape their way of working, while meeting team objectives, the more their psychological needs are met and the more proactive they become in resolving problems before they even arise (Forest et al., 2022).
Ways of working are what structures the work. They involve looking at how one-on-ones and team meetings are approached, how decisions are made and how deliverables are organized.
Encouraging flexible ways of working means acting with intention by identifying what truly supports the team’s needs.
So, what concrete action needs to be taken?
Second protective factor: Reducing interruptions at work
Always being available and responding to people quickly (e.g. emails, texts and calls) are implicit organizational expectations. However, according to Lupien (2023), workers spend over 40% of their time switching from one task to another, and this lack of time to complete a task significantly raises biological markers of stress. This information opens up a discussion that is still seldom addressed: the impact of interruptions in the workplace.
In today’s fast-paced environment, observing personal work habits and discussing them openly as a team can reduce stress for everyone. This also provides an opportunity to deconstruct the appearance of performance, which is too often related to availability and fast response time. The goal is to identify:
Continuously adapting work habits means maintaining performance.
Third protective factor: Maximizing optimal concentration time
Managers would be well advised to distinguish between efficiency and productivity. According to Lupien (2023), when you do surface work, you are efficient. You do several tasks at once, even if each one is not done perfectly. When you do deep work, you are productive. You only do one task at a time, and that task is carried out to the best of your abilities. Ways of working should be adapted to the tasks at hand: when deadlines are tight and collaboration is essential, having more meetings can be a good strategy. However, it’s important to discontinue these meetings once they are no longer necessary and to provide times and physical spaces that are suitable for deep work when concentration is needed.
Encouraging flexible ways of working means generating optimal, sustainable performance. Understanding the nature of the work at hand (efficiency or productivity) and adapting work habits is a concrete action that contributes to the health-performance balance.
In conclusion, adopting a broader view of flexibility that incorporates job crafting individual contributions and ways of working helps to create and maintain high-performance work environments. Managers with a clear understanding of the required talent, the strengths of their team and the needs related to the nature of the work are able to organize work in a way that supports protective factors for health while boosting performance.
This article was written by:
Julie Cousineau, CHRP,
Partner, Health and Benefits
Normandin Beaudry
Nadia Boucher, CHRP,
Principal, Compensation, Talent and Culture
Normandin Beaudry
Valérie Herbeuval, CHRP,
Principal, Health, and Talent and Culture
Normandin Beaudry
References
Achor, S. (2010). The happiness advantage: The seven principles of positive psychology that fuel success and performance at work. Crown.
Boucher, N., Cloutier, G. (April 2025). Amplifying performance in a sustainable way. NBlog. https://www.normandin-beaudry.ca/en/nblog/amplifying-performance-in-a-sustainable-way/
Commission des normes, de l’équité, de la santé et de la sécurité du travail du Québec. (January 2025). Les risques psychosociaux liés au travail – Statistiques 2019-2023. https://www.cnesst.gouv.qc.ca/sites/default/files/documents/statistiques-risques-psychosociaux-travail.pdf
Deloitte Insights. (2022). The skills-based organization: A new operating model for work and the workforce. https://www.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/topics/talent/organizational-skill-based-hiring.html
Forest, J., Van den Broeck, A., Van Coillie, H. and B. Mueller, M., (2022). Libérer la motivation avec la théorie de l’autodétermination. Édito.
Forest, P. Dubreuil, L. Crevier-Braud and S. Girouard. (2024). Miser sur les forces des personnes pour améliorer le fonctionnement au travail. Carrefour RH. https://carrefourrh.org/ressources/developpement-competences-releve/2024/10/forces-employes-ameliorer-fonctionnement-travail.
Gartner. (2023). Three Cues to Unlock Employees’ Optimal Performance, A CHRO guide to signaling path, pace and progress.
https://www.gartner.com/en/human-resources/trends/three-cues-to-unlock-employees-optimal-performance
Olafsen, A., P. C.Marescaux, B., Kujanpää, M. (August 2024).Crafting for autonomy, competence, and relatedness: A self-determination theory model of need crafting at work. Applied Psychology, 74 (1), https://doi.org/10.1111/apps.12570.
Lupien, S., (2023). Le stress au travail vs le stress du travail : comment réinventer le travail pour diminuer le stress. Éditions Va Savoir.
