Get business insights from research on worker well-being in this U-M course
Achyuta Adhvaryu is an associate professor of business economics and public policy. He is also a co-founder of Good Business Lab. His University of Michigan online course “How to Create a Good Business” extends Good Business Lab’s mission to improve the lives of all workers, and U-M’s commitment to deliver innovative education focused on the future of work.
With the worldwide reach of the platform, making the course available on Coursera helps Professor Adhvaryu connect to a truly global workforce and make an international impact across industries. Not only that, but the course can also be continuously and exponentially refined by the amazingly diverse perspectives of its students, receiving priceless input from the current and future global workforce that it serves.
The course emphasizes comprehensive understanding of worker well-being for a wide array of individuals. Management professionals seeking to improve the bottomline of their business can learn to design, implement, measure, and scale worker well-being programs so they can reach their goals. At the same time, students and graduates with an interest in worker well-being and sustainable business can learn from real-world case studies, enhancing their subject knowledge while gaining practical skills. Essentially, the course is for anyone keen to learn about the why, what, and how of well-being programs in the workplace.
Professor Adhvaryu’s course combines insights from labor and business leaders with the well-being principles promoted by Good Business Lab for an international audience. The course contextualizes Good Business Lab’s research with perspectives from stakeholders across industries to show how a holistic understanding of worker well-being can support the creation of sustainable, responsible, and profitable businesses.
In the ten years that he taught on campus at U-M, Professor Adhvaryu saw the critical role businesses can play in advancing the well-being of their workers. Along with two of his peers, Professor Adhvaryu designed Good Business Lab to be a non-profit labor innovation organization that aims to make the business case for worker well-being. They believe that worker well-being and business profitability are not in contradiction and, in fact, the former has the potential to improve the latter.
Often, businesses are not equipped with the evidence and tools required to properly promote workers’ well-being. Good Business Lab generates evidence to change how businesses across the globe think about investing in their workers. In the past, the lab has partnered with private players in labor-intensive industries like apparel, retail, and automobiles—in places like India, Bangladesh, the United States, and Latin America—to make the business case for empowering worker well-being.
The private sector can succeed by embracing a model of employment where well-being is an indispensable element of productivity. But this can only be achieved through evidence-based solutions that are contextual and scalable. Distinctions between regions, industries, and individual workers should all be considerations. With this course, you can learn how a better future of work is possible and necessary.
Coursera and Professor Adhvaryu would like to thank the Good Business Lab team of Eshika Gombar, Shalin Gor, Apoorv Somanchi and Rochak Jain for contributing to the U-M course and this story.
