Many well-meaning organisations are now realising the importance of having a formal strategy in place to address employee wellbeing. However, despite the introduction of new policies, training and tech, many organisations are still seeing rising levels of stress, poor mental health and absenteeism. So where are we going wrong?
4 Questions to Assess Why Your Current Employee Wellbeing Strategy May Not Be Working
Here I explore 4 factors that you may not have considered when evaluating the success (or failure!) of your workplace wellbeing strategy. Are you inadvertently adding to the problem? Let’s do some exploring.
Is your wellbeing program actually adding to their stress bucket?
One of the leading drivers of poor employee well-being is stress. Recent studies show that one in four (24%) people in the UK feel stressed more days a month than they don’t. When considering wellbeing initiatives, you want to really be focusing on relieving colleagues from these feelings of overwhelm not adding to them. However, many companies are investing heavily in things such as wellbeing apps which promote physical team challenges, activity trackers or recording food choices & health stats for example.
If you are not careful, you could be inadvertently adding more pressure to already stressed-out employees who now feel they must record and perform in furthermore areas of their lives. This is particularly significant for type-A personalities who tend to put pressure on themselves to ‘achieve’. This idea of striving, achieving, and ‘winning’ are actually values that are going to have a negative effect on teams who may already be on the brink of burnout.
‘Stress’ can come from many different factors, not just the amount of work someone has on their plate. For example, encouraging your staff to go for a 5k run in their lunchbreak or attend an early morning HIIT workout may seem positive but could actually be adding to their stress load for certain individuals. Perhaps instead, a lie in or a quiet lunch break in the park is really what they need. But if you are promoting, and perhaps even rewarding, more steps or intense physical activity, this may encourage them to neglect the need for rest, so often overlooked in workplace.
Tying in with this, it is widely accepted that our overwhelming reliance on technology and screens is having a negative impact on our mental health. This is especially the case at work, with the rise of remote working where everything, including team socials, is carried out over a screen. It is therefore slightly ironic that many of the wellbeing ‘solutions’ are actually encouraging people to increase their screentime.
Are Any Of Your Wellbeing Initiatives Acting As Stressors?
Is the environment working against your strategy?
You could have the best workplace wellbeing strategy in place but if the work environment isn’t supporting it, it is never going to work.
For example, are you promoting the benefits of less caffeine and more filtered water but your offering subsidised espressos and no filtered water dispensers?
Have a think about the work environment your staff are in and how this ties in with the wellbeing initiatives you are offering. Perhaps it is difficult for staff to actually get any physical exercise without leaving the office or perhaps the current seating is causing back issues or the canteen has limited fresh vegetables on offer.
It is important that what you are promoting as healthy behaviours is made to be as easy as possible to actually put into practice at work.
You may also want to consider the work environment of remote employees. Are there barriers that are preventing them from fully engaging and participating in the wellbeing program you have invested in. Do they need adjustments to their workspace, ideas for healthy snacks or simply more regular check-ins with a manager or mentor.
An anonymous employee survey is a great way of finding out what behaviours people are actually putting into practice and why they may be struggling with implementing certain things.It may be that instead of a whole new wellness program, you simply need some more quiet spaces, better cooking facilities or a revised canteen menu.
Here at The Nutrition Advantage, we can help you identify any hidden opportunities or barriers that may be getting in the way of positive behaviour change.
Are you encouraging long-term habit changes?
“It takes 3 weeks to break a habit, 6 weeks to develop a new habit and 36 weeks to hardwire this new habit.” Patrick Holford
It has been shown that it takes over 250 days for a new habit to become automatic. For this to happen, the new habit needs to be practised consistently for over 36 weeks or more. The issue with many well-being programs or initiatives is that they don’t provide consistency over an extended period of time.
There may be a one-off wellbeing day at work with a series of events and talks then not much mention of wellbeing for the rest of the year. Or there may be intermittent one-off webinars or health promotion campaigns but nothing consistent or sustained.
For new healthy habits to really become embedded and have long-term benefits, employees need to be exposed to on-going health support and education. They need to be continually reminded of the benefits of making the change and given realistic options, generally starting very small, to try to make the change a reality.
It is also really important that everyone understands the ‘why’ as this is necessary for people to be motivated to make real change. It may be all well and good giving everyone access to guided meditations or healthy meal prep plans but if they aren’t 100% clear on why they should be doing this, the chance of the behaviours being embed for long-term benefit it low.
Educating and empowering teams is such a key way to get them to want to make the changes and fully engage in wellbeing activities you provide. If they have the knowledge of how something impacts their physical or mental health and ways they can positively affect this, they are a lot more likely to engage in more positive behaviour. This is also likely to have positive outcomes on prevention and not just providing the ‘cure’. We all know exercise and vegetables are good for us but if we begin to understand the ‘why’, suddenly our motivation to actively adopt healthy habits increases.
Here at The Nutrition Advantage, our corporate nutritionist can deliver a series of informative and inspiring wellbeing webinars or workshops. This can really help everyone understand the ‘whys’ as well as providing simple and practical ‘hows’.
Another key factor that is often overlooked when it comes to creating an environment for encouraging long term habit changes is personalisation. Employee wellbeing needs vary from person to person, and a one-size-fits-all approach may not be effective. If your strategy does not take into consideration the diverse needs and preferences of your employees, it may not resonate with them. Really listening to the views of individuals is paramount here, as is a good line management relationship where managers are checking in individually and offering personalised support to help people adopt and embed new healthy habits.
Is the company culture sabotaging your efforts?
It may well be that you have put a lot of thought and effort into a really engaging employee wellbeing program but when it comes down to it, the company culture is making it very challenging for people to get on board.
Perhaps there is a results-oriented, hard-working, demanding, and highly competitive culture which leaves little space for any sort of employee wellbeing. Ironically, it is often these organisations that could benefit the most from some authentic focus on employee health. Although they may pay lip service to it, unless the culture makes room for people to address their mental health for example, or take a much-needed break, the strategy is doomed to fail.
It is therefore really important that any wellbeing initiative has the genuine backing of the managers at the top. They need to act as role models in order for everyone else to feel comfortable following suit. Living on cookies and caffeine and not moving from their desk is not relaying the importance of self-care to the rest of their colleagues.
Leadership buy-in and support are crucial for the success of any wellbeing program. If leaders within your organisation do not actively promote and prioritise employee wellbeing, it may not be perceived as a priority by employees. Ensure that senior leaders are actively involved, advocate for the program, and model healthy behaviours to create a culture that values wellbeing.
But let’s face it, you are not going to be able to change a company culture overnight so it is important that when you plan your wellbeing strategy, it is somewhat aligned with your current culture, values, and goals. For example, if your company has a more community-focused, collaborative and charitable culture, use this to your wellbeing strategy advantage and incorporate team wellness activities and fundraising events.
Don’t fret if your current wellbeing strategy isn’t quite achieving the result you hoped for. Reality check: there is only so much influence you can have on someone’s state of health and with so much general stress and anxiety in the world presently, there is so much outside of your control. The main thing to focus on is to provide a supportive, non-judgemental, psychologically safe environment for your staff where they feel they can bring their authentic self to work and feel comfortable and able to access support when needed.
An employee wellbeing strategy is never something that is ever really complete. It is an on-going process of providing consistent, relevant and fun opportunities for people to address their own physical, mental and emotional health. The striving for a happy, healthy workplace isn’t an easy challenge but it sure is a worthwhile one.
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