Work-life balance and wellness levels are worse than ever, writes Lana Hindmarch.
I know what it feels like to suffer from burnout. It was hard. And it was lonely. In those days it was seen as a sign of weakness – so the topics were avoided, especially in high-performance cultures, and other topics, like employee wellness, were seen as fluffy.
Fast forward to 2022 – the year where people are saying their wellbeing is more important than their careers and where CEOs see the wellness of their people as a critical business imperative.
Employee wellness has become the hottest buzzword and wellness budgets are finally having their day. No longer is wellness the responsibility of a junior HR co-ordinator. Now, new titles devoted to wellness, like ‘Chief Wellbeing Officer’ ensure that wellness has its seat at the table.
The focus has also moved beyond the outdated ‘physical health and biometric data model’ to a more holistic approach that also includes the mental and emotional aspects of wellness. And many companies are now looking beyond the limited scope of an EAP and exploring a more proactive approach to wellness.
Even more impressive, some companies now recognise that wellness is not a one-size-fits-all nor can it be achieved by expecting employees to jump through hoops to earn points.
And yet, despite the fact that wellness has become the apple of every company’s eye (or certainly of those that wish to become great places to work), work-life balance and wellness levels are worse than ever. Stress, burnout and depression continue to rise. New HR industry hashtags continue to light up social media. And chart-topping singles, like Beyonce’s ‘Break my soul,’ are becoming anthems for the worsening wellness crisis.
So, what’s getting in the way of wellness? Well, that’s exactly it. Companies are putting everything into wellness but they’re not actually looking at what’s getting in the way of wellness. Wellness still remains an ‘on-the-side’ discussion. I call this the “Wellness Wednesdays” approach. This is when wellness is an ad hoc initiative – something with a start and an end.
This is when wellness doesn’t connect to the culture, and the bigger strategic plan of the business. The wellness initiative remains a siloed, ‘tick-the-box’ programme that has no connection to the rest of the business. It doesn’t result in any kind of meaningful change and it’s a waste of people, time and money. It takes many forms – a step challenge, no-meeting Fridays, a mindfulness programme, mental health month, resilience workshops, healthy food in the cafeteria, or a great leave policy, to name a few. Some companies have even given all their employees a full week off work for mental health. And yes - in some companies it is actually called ‘Wellness Wednesdays.’
What I think is contributing to the lack of effectiveness of this siloed approach, is that the responsibility sits with the employee to take better care of themselves. But, as I experienced in my own life, you can’t cure burnout with self-care alone.
Companies continue to give their people time off or more yoga or the best wellness apps. All of those things are an important part of the foundation, but they’re not actually looking at the systemic issues causing the stress and burnout in the first place.
An employee at a large company last week said to me, “We’re in a vicious cycle, constant meetings, no silence, no breaks, no breathing space. But every Wednesday they do a wellness session – I don’t want a wellness session, I want my boss to stop emailing me on weekends.”
In another company, someone spoke about the new state of the art wellness app the company had introduced but shared how the same company has a ‘night-owl’ award for employees who have put in long hours to go ‘above and beyond.’ So, we ask, what’s getting in the way of wellness? Work itself is getting in the way of wellness.
Making work better
Wellbeing can be positively or negatively impacted by many things in an organisation or in a person’s work day.
When I talk to employees and ask them what’s getting in the way of their wellness, the biggest themes I hear are – workload, being always-on and connected 24/7, poor leadership practices, lack of trust, lack of workplace community and connection, and poor work-life balance.
Yet, to support wellness, companies want a programme that’s focused on the employee. The most common request I get is to come and talk to employees to help them prevent burnout. Very few organisations want to look at the leadership or culture aspect. In fact, only once in the last 12 months has a CEO suggested to me, to improve wellbeing, they must start with leaders. And not surprisingly, this company has extremely high levels of trust and engagement.
What’s also interesting is that many solutions to increasing wellbeing focus on decreasing work: less email, fewer days (like the four-day work week trend) or giving people more leave.
But Gallups analysis of employee burnout has found that it’s the way people experience their work that most affects their wellbeing.
Building cultures of wellbeing
A key part of making work better is developing norms around ways of working and creating clarity at a team level on what it means to treat each other well and work in healthy ways. And it’s critical that leaders encourage this and model the right behaviours.
Furthermore, wellness shouldn’t be something with a start and end point. Rather than having a wellness programme, I prefer to use the language of building a culture of wellbeing. Supporting wellbeing is an ongoing process and applies to every aspect of the employee experience.
Wellbeing should become part of the way work gets done. This is how we make work better.
The WE in wellbeing
There’s a WE in wellbeing for a reason. Relationships at work have a huge impact on wellbeing – the relationships between leaders and their teams and the relationships between colleagues.
In looking to improve wellbeing, especially in an ever-changing environment, where more teams have adopted a hybrid model, we have to look at the whole system.
With our clients, we encourage leaders to ask questions like: What in our culture enables wellbeing, and what gets in the way of people taking care of themselves? What behaviours are we rewarding? Are leaders modelling wellbeing? Are we recognising people who prioritise wellbeing or are we just recognising performance? What can we do to improve the ways we work and how we set boundaries? How can we better respect each other’s time off?
Even with all the right questions though, it’s important to recognise that culture change doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a journey. And it starts by having intentional conversations.
Part of the WE conversation should include the employee voice – asking for input from people to better understand the root cause of issues. There’s no one-size-fits-all. Every company we work with is different.
And so, ongoing and sometimes difficult conversations between managers and their teams is important to understand what’s getting in the way of wellbeing. Employee surveys can be a good starting point but employers should consider going deeper to get to the heart of the real root cause issues.
Creating the right conditions
We have seen many of our clients achieve success by creating healthy organisational conditions for people to show up as the best version of themselves. Building a culture of wellbeing is a lengthier and more intensive path than the ‘tick-box-wellness Wednesdays’ route. It requires a strategic approach, genuine leadership commitment, time, energy, and the buy-in of every single employee.
But for leaders who are intentional about going this route, the rewards make it well worth the ride. Companies with cultures of wellbeing report increased retention, higher performance, improved work-life balance scores, a reduction in burnout, higher engagement and less absenteeism.
Above all else though, these leaders are leaving a legacy by creating a world that we all want to work in.
Lana is a wellbeing specialist, facilitator and keynote speaker. She is also the co-founder and
CEO of BREATHE, an organizational wellbeing consultancy that provides creative, sustainable solutions
to help companies build better places to work, where people thrive and businesses prosper.
