8. Employee Vitality

People as a resource have never been as valuable as they are today. Any absence due to illness—also without COVID-19—is therefore felt particularly hard. For this reason, it is an important goal of human resource management to reduce sickness-related absences through effective staff development activities—especially since our workforces are, on average, getting older. Studies and statistics on sick leave around the world show that companies have their work cut out for them if they want to turn this dismal state of affairs into a key success factor. More and more people feel strained and become ill as a result of chronic stress. Time pressure and work intensity in particular are causing increased mental health problems. It is in the companies’ own best interest to maintain employees’ long-term ability to work by ensuring that they are not permanently overburdened (or underchallenged). Vitality comprises physical, mental, and emotional well-being and thus encompasses health in the conventional sense. People who have vitality are so physically and mentally fit and energetic and so resilient and proactive that they hardly feel burdened at all anymore.