Creating A Fulfilling Workplace: A Holistic Approach To Employee Well-Being At Lvpei

Set in August 2019, this case describes the efforts of L. V. Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI) to implement an initiative to improve the well-being of its employees by addressing their needs holistically. LVPEI is one of the leading medical institutions in India and the world in eye care treatment and research. As part of its mission to treat its patients well and provide excellent eye care services, LVPEI also sought to treat its employees well and provide them with a work setting that enabled them to thrive. This focus on employee well-being led LVPEI’s Chairman, Dr. G. N. Rao, and Vice-Chairman, Dr. G. Chandra Sekhar, to invite Ram Nidumolu, co-author of the case study (referred to as “the consultant” in the case for the purposes of objectivity), to identify areas of improvement and implement initiatives to enhance employee well-being. The initiative described in this case study began in August 2018 and was completed a year later. The initiative was built around a new approach to employee well-being called “beingful work”. Beingful work theory, developed by Nidumolu and his associates, posits that employee well-being is influenced by the extent to which the workplace fulfills the needs of the employee’s “whole self” or being. These holistic needs include material, psychological, social, ecological, and moral/spiritual needs that employees bring to their work. The more the organization cultivates a work setting that fulfills these needs, the more meaningful work becomes for employees, making them more engaged with their work. Meaningful and engaging work, in turn, promotes the holistic well-being of employees because of the positive energy it creates. The case describes three phases of implementation of beingful work at LVPEI, of which the third phase—scaling up—is proving to be the most challenging.