As suggested by our theoretical framework, HWC would serve as a resource for safeguarding employees against emotional exhaustion (Jeung and Chang, 2021). Emotional exhaustion denotes a state of chronic fatigue characterized by a lack of energy and a feeling of depletion of emotional resources (Maslach and Jackson, 1981). This dimension is central to burnout (Cropanzano et al., 2003; Halbesleben and Bowler, 2007; Maslach, 1982) and arises from exposure to stressors, as it represents a severe tension reaction to chronic work-related stress (Maslach et al., 2001). Emotionally exhausted employees tend to exhibit behaviors that can negatively impact the organization, such as an increased intent to leave, lower job performance, or reduced engagement (Cropanzano et al., 2003). Additionally, emotionally exhausted employees are prone to developing more health problems (Chen et al., 2022), increased absenteeism, or higher presenteeism rates (Beauchamp Legault et al., 2023). According to the Conservation of Resources theory (Hobfoll, 1989), emotional exhaustion occurs when there is a perceived threat or an actual loss of resources and when the individual feels unable to counteract this loss (Hobfoll, 2002). Individuals strive to obtain, preserve, enhance, and protect the elements (resources) they value (Hobfoll, 1989). Stress arises when individuals perceive they are losing the resources necessary to meet challenges (Hobfoll, 1989). Employees' favorable perception of HWC is a resource that could have a protective effect against exhaustion (Dextras-Gauthier and Marchand, 2016; Dimitrios and Konstantinos, 2014). Recent studies indicate that a supportive work environment for employees' health and well-being negatively impacts emotional exhaustion, as it helps employees in preventing resource depletion (Rathert et al., 2022; Sonnentag et al., 2023).

The Conservation of Resources theory also encompasses the principle of the caravan of resources (Hobfoll et al., 2018). This principle helps us understand how environments and contexts can create conditions that are conducive to or hostile to creating or maintaining resources. Resources do not exist in isolation; some emerge when a combination of conditions is present (Hobfoll, 2011). Employees recognize the organization's resources to support their health and well-being, and these perceptions subsequently influence their behaviors and attitudes at work (Vandenberg et al., 2002). An organizational climate favorable to employees' health and well-being would indicate that the organization provides resources that promote and protect employees' health and well-being. Employees facing stress-generating situations at work could rely on their organization to increase their resource pool, thereby reducing emotional exhaustion. We thus propose the following hypothesis:

Figure 1 presents our study's theoretical model and hypotheses, which will be detailed in this section.

The employee insurance claims profile provides relevant information about employees' health and reflects an individual's general state of health (Konrad et al., 2019). Reports suggest that when employees' health is compromised, they tend to make more insurance claims, resulting in higher costs for organizations (Jones et al., 2018; Thériault, 2022). The presence of an HWC might help decrease these claims, by providing an environment more conducive to individual health and well-being. In line with the Conservation of Resources theory (Hobfoll et al., 2018), we believe employees' perceptions of HWC can affect their insurance claims profiles. A positive perception of the HWC provides resources that are beneficial to employees' health (e.g., a work environment focused on prevention, awareness, communication, and the implementation of practices and programs). Consequently, employees are less likely to become ill or experience poor well-being compared to organizations that do not provide this type of wellness-oriented support culture. Specifically, we believe that employees perceiving a high HWC would tend to file fewer healthcare, disability, and drug claims.

Moreover, the negative health consequences associated with significant emotional exhaustion may increase employees' insurance claims for physical and psychological health issues (Maslach et al., 2001; Weziak-Bialowolska et al., 2023). Organizations subscribing to and offering group insurance to their employees might incur significant expenses due to their employees' poor health. Mental health issues, such as emotional exhaustion, could increase employees' predisposition to make more health-related insurance claims (Mental Health Commission of Canada, 2018; Weziak-Bialowolska et al., 2023). According to the Conservation of Resources theory (Hobfoll, 1989; Hobfoll et al., 2018), stress occurs when resources are lost. Resource loss can also result in other losses, a principle known as the “resource loss spiral” in Hobfoll's theory, which can affect employees' well-being (Hobfoll, 1989; Hobfoll et al., 2018). An employee experiencing emotional exhaustion would, therefore, be more sensitive to further resource loss, thereby increasing the propensity to make insurance claims related to physical or psychological health issues. We propose that an emotionally exhausted employee may be more likely to make claims related to healthcare, disability, and drugs, leading us to the third hypothesis:

The supervisor plays an essential role in spreading the organizational climate, support, and practices to employees (Valentino, 2004; Haas, 2020). Studies show that supervisor support has positive outcomes for employees' job satisfaction (Erdeji et al., 2016) organizational attachment (Afzal et al., 2019) and decreases the intention to quit (Gordon et al., 2019). Supervisor support is recognized as a key relationship in the workplace that has a beneficial effect on employees' mental health (Donaldson-Feilder and Lewis, 2017; Haas, 2020). Supervisor support as a form of social support can shield individuals from the negative effects of stress. Aligned with the Conservation of Resources theory (Hobfoll, 1989), the supervisor can act as a resource facilitator for employees by providing social support, which minimizes resource loss and promotes resource gain for employees. This construct has been demonstrated in several studies to be a component that promotes individuals' health, particularly mental health (Dimoff and Kelloway, 2017; Mansour and Tremblay, 2016; Plaisier et al., 2007). Social support, especially from managers, can have a positive influence on their employees' health and well-being (Rudolph et al., 2020; Brady et al., 2025).

Supervisor support seems to be a crucial resource for workplace health and well-being (Hämmig, 2017; Dimoff and Kelloway, 2017). and should be considered a critical factor in promoting HWC. Leaders and managers who embrace the values of a health and well-being climate in the workplace are more likely to support the health and well-being of their employees through their management practices. We propose that the association between HWC, emotional exhaustion, and the insurance claims profile is moderated by the supervisor's HWC support. This association would be stronger with a high level of perceived supervisor support than with a low level of support.

The data for this study were collected from December 2019 to July 2021 using an online questionnaire. The questionnaire targeted 6,522 employees across 59 Canadian organizations from various sectors, including municipalities, finance and insurance, education, health care, information technology, manufacturing, mining, … A final sample of 3,017 respondents was obtained, yielding a response rate of 46%. Among these respondents, 741 consented to provide their group insurance certificate number so researchers could match their questionnaire with their group insurance profile. All employees were insured by the same insurance company. Subsequently, the insurer transmitted the employees' insurance claims profiles to the researchers, which included data regarding the employees' disability, drug, and healthcare claims. As this study focuses on group insurance claims profiles, only questionnaires from respondents who consented to the association of their claims profile with their questionnaire were included in the analysis. Out of 741 respondents who provided their insurance certificate number, a total of 661 questionnaires from employees across 17 organizations in various sectors (including municipalities, finance and insurance, education, and health care), were retained after excluding those with missing values.

Regarding the descriptive statistics of this sample, 51.7% of the participants identify as female. Participants' ages range from 21 to 68 years, with an average of 43.48 years and a standard deviation of 10.43 years. 35.5% of participants hold a bachelor's degree, 31.2% have a college diploma, 11% possess a master's or MBA, 10.3% have a high school diploma, 10% hold a certificate from a university undergraduate program, and 1.4% have a doctorate. On average, respondents made 27.62 healthcare claims, 51.19 drug claims, and 0.9 disability claims between 2019 and 2021 at the time of the data collection. Table 1 presents these statistics.

The study was conducted in French and English, and all instruments used in French were translated from English using a standard translation procedure (Brislin, 1980). The questionnaire was pre-tested with ten respondents to ensure that all questions were understandable. The following section presents measurement scales used to measure the concepts in this study.

Hypothesis analysis was conducted using IBM SPSS AMOS 28.0. Initially, we estimated the measurement model by performing confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) as recommended by Anderson and Gerbing (1988) two-step approach before conducting causal model analysis with the structural equation model. Maximum likelihood estimation was used since the data were normally distributed. All presented betas in the results section are standardized.

The first hypothesis (H1) proposed that a positive perception of HWC was negatively associated with emotional exhaustion. Our results indicate that the perception of a positive HWC is negatively correlated with emotional exhaustion, supporting hypothesis 1 (ß = −0.208, p = 0.001). Figure 2 illustrates the final structural model with standardized coefficients.

The second hypothesis (H2) suggested that HWC would negatively predict the insurance claims profile, specifically by reducing (a) healthcare claims, (b) disability claims, and (c) drug claims. The analyses revealed that HWC is negatively associated with the number of disability claims (ß = −0.145, p = 0.001), supporting hypothesis 2b. No significant relationship was found between HWC and (a) healthcare (p = 0.441) and (b) drug claims (p = 0.822), refuting hypotheses 2a and 2c.

Subsequently, the third hypothesis (H3) proposed that emotional exhaustion would be positively related to the insurance claims profile, leading to an increase in (a) healthcare claims, (b) disability claims, and (c) drug claims. The results show that emotional exhaustion has a significant positive relationship with the number of disability claims, supporting hypothesis 3b) (ß = 0.098, p = 0.012). However, no significant relationship was found between emotional exhaustion and (a) healthcare claims (p = 0.665) (H3a), nor between emotional exhaustion and (b) drug claims (p = 0.407) (H3c).

Finally, the fourth hypothesis (H4) posited that the relationship between HWC, (a) emotional exhaustion, and (b) the insurance claims profile would be moderated by the supervisor's HWC support, such that this relationship would be stronger for a high level of perceived support than for a low level. Low and high values of the supervisor's HWC support were tested at −1 Standard Deviation and +1 Standard Deviation. Regarding hypothesis 4a, the moderation effect is significant (ß = −0.087, p = 0.032), indicating that the significant negative relationship between HWC and emotional exhaustion is stronger when the perception of the supervisor's HWC support is high. Figure 3 illustrates the effect of this moderation. For hypothesis 4b, the analyses show no significant relationship (p = 0.510 for disability claims, p = 0.930 for drug claims, and p = 0.252 for healthcare claims). Therefore, hypothesis 4 is partially supported.

For control variables, participants' age is positively related to the number of drug claims (ß = 0.297, p < 0.001), disability claims (ß = 0.075, p < 0.05), and healthcare claims (ß = 0.146, p < 0.001). This result suggests that older employees tend to make more insurance claims. Additionally, age is negatively related to emotional exhaustion (ß = −0.158, p < 0.001). Finally, no significant relationship was found between participants' gender (coded 1 for male and 2 for female) and the various variables in the research model.

Theoretically, in line with the resource caravan concept and the loss spiral cycle of the Conservation of Resources theory (Hobfoll et al., 2018), the results of this study underline the importance of having a climate conducive to health and well-being at work, as well as the need to empower managers to provide resources that support employee health (Dimoff and Kelloway, 2017). In fact, the results of our study show that the presence of a health and well-being climate at work, along with a positive perception of the immediate superior's support regarding health and well-being, seems to contribute to employee well-being, with less emotional exhaustion and less disability claims. This study better explains how organizational climate and supervisor support for occupational health and well-being can provide meaningful resources to employees. This study also illustrates the phenomenon of the loss spiral of resources for employees who perceive their work environment as less conducive to their well-being.

Furthermore, this study introduces the concept of HWC, providing a new perspective for examining organizational health and well-being climate and enhancing our understanding of how an organization can impact its employees' perceptions of health and well-being at work. This concept not only broadens the scope of occupational health research but also provides useful information for organizations striving to create a supportive environment that prioritizes employee well-being.

This study also shows that the occupational health and well-being climate (HWC) is essential to employees' health. Indeed, this study demonstrates that HWC is an important vector of resources for employee health and well-being. Previous studies have sought to understand the effect of workplace health and well-being practices on employee health and organizational outcomes, often with inconclusive results (e.g., Baxter et al., 2014; Fleming, 2023; Jones et al., 2018). Our study indicates that HWC can play an essential role in this equation.

To our knowledge, very few studies have focused on the impact of occupational health and well-being climate on group insurance claims and obtained significant results in this area (e.g., Jones et al., 2018). In this study, claims data provide relevant information on employees' health. These data are generally considered more objective than employees' self-report data, which may be shaped by personal or social perceptions. Using such data reduces certain biases and offers valuable insights for evaluating outcomes related to organizational phenomena (Lohr, 1990; Konrad et al., 2019). In addition, data linkage between survey data and insurance group claims data remains under-utilized (March, 2017; Berete et al., 2023) in organizational research. Our findings with claims data demonstrate the tangible correlation between the workplace and employees' health.

This research demonstrates how HWC tangibly and positively influences employee well-being at work. It indicates that establishing a culture that promotes HWC in the workplace certainly involves employees' perception of the organization's commitment to health and well-being.

In practical terms, the adapted measurement scale we used to assess employees' perceptions of Health and Well-being Climate (HWC) provides valuable insights for organizations looking to foster this culture within their workplace. An organization with a robust workplace health and well-being climate is viewed by employees as responsive to workplace health and wellness concerns, engaging in frequent discussions on the topic, supplying the necessary resources to promote this culture, involving the organization's leaders, sharing relevant information about health and well-being, and taking the time to heed employees' ideas and concerns in this area. These organizations also regularly host activities focused on employee health and well-being. As a result, organizations can use this measurement scale as an assessment tool to validate their efforts in this area.

This study also indicates that organizations promoting a culture of health and well-being in the workplace can significantly improve employees' well-being and reduce their group insurance costs. An employee on disability incurs significant direct costs (e.g., absenteeism, turnover), indirect costs (e.g., loss of productivity), and human costs (e.g., increased workload for colleagues). This underscores the importance of understanding how to prevent this type of claim.

This study's results also show that supervisor support for health and well-being strengthens the relationship between HWC and emotional exhaustion. For this reason, organizations should make managers aware of their impact on employees' health and well-being and use them as “health ambassadors”.

This study also sheds light on solutions that allow organizations to stand out in a significant labor shortage. In recent years, the COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically transformed the work environment and altered how employees view their workplaces, emphasizing the importance of health and well-being. As a result, organizations need to focus on fostering a workplace that prioritizes their employees' health and well-being if they wish to stand out from the competition. Health and well-being climate is now a central issue for employee retention and should be considered essential in developing strategic human resources management.

This study certainly has limitations that need to be addressed. First, the data were collected at a single point in time. Although this data collection method allows for measuring phenomena without attrition, it has limitations since it is impossible to establish a causal link between the variables (Bakker et al., 2003). Longitudinal data collection could enable us to observe significant new links in the model, especially regarding changes in the perception of HWC over time and its association with employees' health and well-being.

The data were also collected during the COVID-19 pandemic, which may have influenced individuals' perceptions of their organization's HWC. Indeed, the presence of major health measures in Canada during the pandemic may have altered employees' perceptions- either positive or negative- of their HWC or the support of their supervisor during this time of uncertainty.

Additionally, the information was collected solely from organizations based in Quebec, a province of Canada. Health care access differs across countries, influencing the use of group insurance among employees.

The scales measuring HWC and the supervisor's support for HWC were adapted from validated scales. Adapting these scales carries methodological limitations that should be acknowledged in terms of validity (Heggestad et al., 2019).

Furthermore, many events in workers' personal lives can impact their mental health status and consequently influence their emotional exhaustion and claims profile (i.e., the concept of negative home-to-work spillover). Future studies should control for these aspects by examining personal life events participants.

Finally, even though respondents voluntarily chose to provide access to their insurance claims profiles, selection bias might have occurred due to the sensitive nature of this data. Employees with serious health problems may have decided not to share their claims profiles with the research team. In addition, data about the health status of the participants (e.g., BMI, smoking habits, chronic diseases, etc.) were not collected and made accessible to the researchers and, therefore, could not be controlled.

Several future research directions may be considered. A longitudinal study would be interesting to establish the cause-and-effect relationship between the variables. Observing more significant relationships with other types of insurance claims might be possible, as some could be exacerbated over time. The use of data linkage between survey data and insurance group claims data remains underutilized (March, 2017; Berete et al., 2023), particularly in organizational research. Additional research utilizing this type of data would be pertinent. An international comparison would also be relevant, as national policies can influence how organizations prioritize health and well-being at work, thus affecting how employees perceive HWC. As previously mentioned, the use of group insurance can vary from one country to another due to differences in access to healthcare. A study in another country, or one that allows a comparison between different countries, could, therefore, be quite relevant for comparing results. Furthermore, it would be interesting to experimentally measure how implementing health and well-being practices in an organization impacts employees' perceptions of the health and well-being climate and their insurance claims profiles.