When organisations talk about vitality, the conversation quickly turns to absenteeism figures, a healthy lunch or a step challenge. That is understandable: health is measurable and feels urgent. But vitality is something different, and that difference is exactly where HR often misses an opportunity.
What vitality really is
Chivo, the Dutch knowledge institute for vitality, follows Ryan & Frederick (1997) in defining vitality as “feeling alive and alert, with the energy to pursue your own goals”. That is a fundamentally different perspective from ‘not being ill’. Building on this, the Dutch research institutes TNO and RIVM distinguish three core dimensions of vitality: motivation, energy and resilience. None of the three is about the absence of complaints — they are all about the presence of drive.
This explains something every manager has come across at some point: an employee who is perfectly healthy from a medical point of view, yet drifts through the working day listless, flat or without purpose. The reverse happens too: someone living with a chronic condition who still manages to find energy for the things that matter to them. In other words, vitality can be seen separately from physical health. It comes down to one question: do you have something to get up for, and do you have the energy for it?
Vitality is the fuel, not the condition
A useful way to see the difference: health is the state of the engine, vitality is the fuel that makes it run. An employee can be in peak physical condition and still be standing still, simply because they see no purpose or meaning in what they do.
Why this matters directly to HR
In most organisations, prevention policy focuses on removing risks: reducing stress, keeping workload manageable, preventing absenteeism. Valuable, but not enough if it stops there. Vitality calls for a different, complementary question: where does someone get their energy from, and how do you keep that source flowing?
Research into the alignment between personal and organisational goals (person-organization goal congruence) shows that employees who recognise their own goals in the work they do are more strongly motivated and more emotionally engaged. Other research, into what is sometimes called ‘proactive vitality management’, finds that when employees actively manage their own energy, attention and engagement, this is associated with greater work engagement and creativity. So energy does not come from good working conditions alone. It arises when people are given room to work towards goals that are meaningful to them, and it keeps flowing more easily when they feel free to organise their work in a way that helps them manage their energy (think of a short walk during the day, screen-free micro-breaks and so on).
This opens up a practical route for HR:
- Talk with employees about what personally drives them. Not just about performance, but about direction.
- Actively look for the common ground between personal ambitions and organisational goals, and explore how you can connect the two.
- Make room for job crafting: small adjustments to how someone shapes their work, so that it fits better with what gives them energy.
- Recognise that a vital employee looks different from a healthy employee, so look not only at absenteeism but also at energy and engagement.
In closing
Health keeps people from dropping out. Vitality makes people want to contribute. Both are needed, but they are not the same lever. Organisations that steer on health alone miss the question that truly matters to employees: do I feel the energy to pursue my goals, and do I see those goals reflected in my work?