How do healthy brains drive a healthy economy? A novel occupational neuroscience approach

英国企业越来越意识到，长时间工作会影响员工的福祉。他们也越来越意识到，糟糕的员工幸福感会对工作场所的表现和企业产出产生连锁反应。企业乃至整个社会面临的一大挑战是，如何为员工找到最佳的工作模式，使他们的福祉和经济产出最大化。这项研究将解释推动工作模式对员工工作表现产生影响的心理和生物过程。我们将研究工作模式对身心健康的影响，以及身心健康如何反过来推动职场表现。我们从其他研究中了解到，工作模式会影响员工的睡眠、生活方式、心理健康和免疫系统。我们还知道，身体和心理健康的这些方面会影响大脑功能，从而最终影响工作表现。为了更好地理解工作模式、幸福感和工作表现之间的心理和生物交互作用，我们将进行三项主要研究。首先，我们将分析来自英国生物库的功能磁共振成像(FMRI)数据，这是一项对10万名英国公民进行的大规模研究。Biobank的参与者提供了有关他们的工作模式的信息，比如他们花在工作上的时间。我们将调查他们的就业因素，特别是他们在工作中花费的时间，如何与特定的大脑活动模式以及生活方式、心理健康和免疫功能相关联。这将告诉我们，在很大一部分英国人口中，长时间工作对健康有什么影响。下一步，我们将与参与计划的雇主一起进行每周4天工作制的试验。在每周工作4天的情况下，全职员工将工作时间减少到每周4天，同时保留全职工资。值得注意的是，到目前为止的研究表明，每周工作4天会提高工作效率。我们认为这是因为员工休息得更好，积极性更高。然而，目前还没有证据表明，工作场所绩效的有益变化是由于改善了身心健康，例如大脑功能。我们将通过核磁共振扫描、血液测试、心理健康和生活方式问卷调查一周四天如何改变员工的幸福感。我们还将调查，在同一组人中，一周工作4天如何改变工作场所的表现。这将使我们第一次解释每周工作4天的工作表现的改善是否是由于员工从减少工作时间中获得的健康好处。最后，我们将寻求复制我们的发现，即每周4天工作更好的幸福感与更好的工作场所表现有关，在全球许多国家进行的4天每周国际试验中，这项试验由4天周全球基金会进行。这将巩固我们对一周四天工作制如何工作的理解，跨越多种类型的雇主和不同的文化。这一全新的科学技术应用(如核磁共振脑部扫描)来了解现代的日常工作模式，将使我们能够就如何最大限度地提高员工的绩效和生产率向政策制定者(政府)和雇主提出建议。它还将使我们能够向公众解释工作模式如何影响健康，以及如何改进这一点。未来，我们还将调查其他对员工健康有潜在影响的现代工作模式，如零时合同，这些模式如何影响幸福感、大脑功能和工作场所表现。最终，这项研究将帮助我们理解和优化21世纪职场的心理和生物理想工作模式。

UK businesses are increasingly aware that long hours at work affect staff wellbeing. They are also increasingly conscious that poor staff wellbeing has a knock-on effect on workplace performance, and business outputs. A major challenge for businesses, and society as a whole, is to find optimum working patterns for staff that maximise both wellbeing, and economic output. This research will explain the psychological and biological processes that drive the impact of working patterns on how staff perform at work. We will study how physical and mental health are affected by working patterns, but also, how physical and mental health in turn drive workplace performance. We know from other research that working patterns affect employees' sleep, lifestyle, mental health, and immune systems. We also know that these aspects of physical and mental health impact on brain function, and therefore, ultimately, on performance at work. In order to better understand the psychological and biological interactions between working patterns, wellbeing, and performance at work, we will conduct three major studies. First, we will analyse functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data from the UK Biobank, a large-scale study of 100,000 UK citizens. The Biobank participants provided information about their working patterns, such as how much time they spend at work. We will investigate how their employment factors, in particular amount of time they spend at work, are associated with particular patterns of brain activity, as well as lifestyle, mental health, and immune function. This will tell us what the health consequences are of working long hours, in a large section of the UK population. Next, we will run trials of a 4 day working week with participating employers. In a 4 day week, full-time staff reduce their working hours to 4 days a week, while retaining full-time salary. Remarkably, studies so far show that productivity at work increases with a 4 day week. We think this is because employees are better rested, and have higher motivation. However, it has not yet been proven that the beneficial changes to workplace performance are due to improvements to physical and mental health, such as in brain function. We will investigate how a 4 day week changes staff wellbeing, using MRI scans, blood tests, and mental health and lifestyle questionnaires. We will also investigate how, in the same group of people, a 4 day week changes workplace performance. This will allow us, for the first time, to explain whether the improvements in performance at work that are seen on a 4 day week are due to the health benefits that employees experience from their reduced time on the job. Finally, we will seek to replicate our findings that better wellbeing on a 4 day week associates with better workplace performance in international trials of a 4 day week, conducted in many countries around the world by the 4 Day Week Global Foundation. This will solidify our understanding of how a 4 day week works, across many types of employers and across cultures. This entirely new application of scientific techniques (such as MRI brain scans) to understand modern day working patterns will enable us to make recommendations to policymakers (Government), and to employers, on how to maximise performance and productivity in the workforce. It will also enable us to explain to the general public how working patterns can impact health, and how this can be improved. In the future, we will also then investigate how other modern working patterns with potential health consequences for employees, such as zero-hours contracts, affect wellbeing, brain function, and workplace performance. Ultimately, this research will help us to understand and optimise psychologically and biologically ideal working patterns for the 21st world of work.