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Fruit bowls. Team days out. Remember when bean bags were scattered all over offices? 

While these are all initiatives that your company can and may have used to promote wellbeing at work, you’ll never know if they’ve made an impact unless you measure the impact your wellbeing initiatives have on your workforce.

There are several reasons that a wellbeing strategy may not work, and not picking the correct KPIs is one of them.

Before you decide what you want to measure, consider the following:

Don’t chase numbers

While KPIs are important, you have to remember not to chase numbers mindlessly; it can have the opposite effect of what you want to achieve. 

A KPI is a measurement, not a target. It intends to tell you how well you are performing so you can create actions to navigate progress against goals.

You’re hiring 50 new staff members, and you want to improve your retention rate so you don’t lose critical team members. 

A staff member hands in a notice, which will ruin your ‘target’. You do everything you can to keep the staff member, worsening their mental health and peers’ mental health, but you get your number.

While you’ve got a number that looks good on a PowerPoint, you’ve destroyed a team’s morale.

Determine your goals and objectives before your metrics

Your wellbeing KPIs need to tie back to your department and business objectives. If they don’t, you could measure something that doesn’t contribute to what you want to achieve.

For example, if your main focus for HR is hiring and onboarding 50 members of staff in the business year, making productivity the driver of your wellbeing strategy wouldn’t make sense. However, measuring retention rates could.

Recommended: How to plan an employee health and wellbeing strategy

Business performance and wellbeing are tightly linked

Organisations can often get so tied up in wellbeing initiatives that they forget about the complimenting factor of performance. 

You can provide the best initiatives and the most support available, but if the company and its employees perform poorly, people’s wellbeing will likely suffer.

Your initiatives have to inspire people to look after their wellbeing, but how your business operates has a substantial contributing factor to your people’s wellbeing.

How to measure wellbeing at work: 6 key measurement areas

If you score high in all these areas, your employees are more likely to be happy and content at the company and within their role. However, don’t think you need to ace all of these areas within 12 months, it can take years for companies to excel in every area.

1. Employee satisfaction: do employees enjoy their role at your company?

Employee satisfaction refers to how much employees enjoy working for your company and how happy they are in their role.

Measuring employee satisfaction is done with eNPS (employee net promoter score) and employee satisfaction surveys. You can then use your data to determine how satisfied your employees are.

Segment your employees

You can then segment your employees into advocates, passives and detractors (although answers must be anonymous). For example, you could ask: How likely are you to recommend us as an excellent place to work?

Anything from 0-4 is a detractor, anything from 5-7 is passive, and anything from 8-10 is an advocate. Your NPS is then calculated by subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters. Passives do not affect your score. 

Consistency is key

To get consistent metrics, you need to undertake surveys throughout the year and use your results to make improvements. You can experiment with different topics and questions to see how well you’re doing in those areas. And although you have to give people anonymity, you can and should involve your people in making improvements whatever way you can.

2. Employee retention: will employees stay with you long-term?

Employee retention refers to whether people are likely to stay with your company. Most companies want high retention as it keeps talent at the business and reduces costs in areas such as the administration of any resignations, recruitment and selection costs, covering the post during the period in which there is a vacancy and induction training for the new employee.

Employee turnover is directly linked to wellbeing in the sense that keeping people happy and looking after their physical, social and psychological wellbeing means they’re more likely to stay at your company. So high retention rates can signify that people are happy in their roles. 

However, it’s important not to get bogged down in the number. People do leave roles they’re happy in; they might want a career change, or they may be moving house. Make sure you get the context in any exit interviews; you may find that even though retention isn’t what you’d hoped for but it may be justified.

At the same time, you need to be honest, and if people are leaving because of a negative experience, it’s something you have to address.

3. Employee motivation: are employees determined to achieve their goals?

How much ambition do you people have to see themselves and the company succeed? Employee motivation is key to helping you achieve your goals and seeing employees thrive in the workplace. 

If employee wellbeing is high, people are more likely to come to work motivated. It’s much harder to focus on doing a good job when feeling down or anxious.

Signs your workforce is low on motivation

• Decrease in productivity
• Tardiness or absenteeism
• Personality or behaviour changes
• Changes in quality of work
• High turnover

You can use your NPS surveys to help you determine motivation levels in your company and dig into some of the above metrics to decide whether or not they are linked to motivation.

Wellbeing and work: coming together to increase motivation

You can make personal connections to your employees and invest in their lives, make sure they know you appreciate what they’re doing for the company, and provide a healthy work-life balance to improve motivation.

However, motivation is directly linked to the employee’s role and whether they have the tools to do it properly. If the company doesn’t function well, it can be a struggle to keep people motivated even when you focus on their wellbeing.

4. Management satisfaction: do employees enjoy working with your management team?

Management satisfaction indicates how satisfied an employee is with the choices management make and how they affect their role at the company. 

An employee’s relationship with their manager is crucial to their wellbeing. If you have a positive working relationship with someone, you’re more likely to be happy. There are a suspected 2.4 million accidental managers in the UK alone who have little to no training in management or leadership.

Learn about your management team

The only way to make effective managers is by getting feedback from their teams and training them to improve in their areas of weakness. There’s also a level of self-awareness required from management, where self-reflection, expectation, and the ability to read how people perceive them generally contributes to how successful they are. 

Again, you’ll usually find information about managers in your NPS surveys if things have taken a turn for the worst (which they hopefully they don’t), unofficial or official meetings about management and employee conduct.

5. Peer satisfaction: do your employees get on with each other?

Employee satisfaction refers to how happy your employees are with each other and how well they work together. Ensuring peer satisfaction will build high-performance, compatible and efficient teams and ensure your organisation has high social wellbeing levels.

Keep employees present

You want employees to be physically and mentally present; they’re more likely to do their job well and be happier. It also means they’re in a better position to notice any problems as they’re more aware and focused and to help any of their team with issues.

Building solid values

All great teams share common values. They’re collaborative, trustworthy, honest, fair, and decisive. Maintaining these values is vital to keep employee morale and wellbeing high.

Discover how happy your people are with each other by getting feedback from management and weave some questions about team satisfaction into your NPS surveys.

6. Work environment: do your employees enjoy their working environment?

The work environment relates to how employees feel about where they work. What are their surroundings? Is your workplace too strict or lenient? But most importantly, is your culture toxic or positive. If you don’t know, you need to find out quickly. If you find your workplace unhealthy, your focus should be on improving company culture.

Signs you have a toxic work environment

• Turnover is the most telling KPI that a workplace is toxic
• Absenteeism and presenteeism are also indicators
• You can also look into data such as complaints about management, the number of disciplinary hearings you have or bullying and harassment complaints.

The signs of a positive work environment are positive reflections of the above. Still, you can also look at rewards and recognition data and ask your employees whether they feel empowered in their roles. There’s usually a good feel around places with healthy work culture, and you can generally pick up on it, and it’s the same for toxic places.

Let your data and people lead you

There we have it, the six main areas you must excel in to create a culture of wellbeing at your organisation. Remember to use data and ensure you can measure all your KPIs. Use a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods to collect your data. That way, you’ll have different datasets and won’t rely on a simple survey. But start small and improve your efforts over time. If employees see you’re trying to make changes, they’re more receptive and patient than if you promise the world and don’t deliver.

How to measure wellbeing at work: Take our company wellbeing strategy assessment

Got 2-minutes? Take our company wellbeing assessment and discover how well you deliver your wellbeing strategy. We’ll also offer you some tips for improvement, and you can speak to one of our team if you want to explore improving your strategy with our help.

The post How to measure wellbeing at work: Pick the KPIs that matter appeared first on Investors in People.

The pandemic has changed peoples’ expectations from their employers, with support for people’s wellbeing now an essential requirement.

So while health and wellbeing are higher on the corporate agenda, it isn’t always prioritised, which could be for several reasons, such as:

• You aren’t sure of the true value of promoting well-being in the workplace and its impact on employees and performance. 
• You aren’t sure whether you can prove the worth of your employee health and wellbeing strategy as it can be challenging to measure and evaluate.
• You aren’t aware of the available initiatives and how you can use them.

We know that you can jump these hurdles and develop a wellbeing strategy that delivers results for you, your business and your people.

So if you haven’t developed a wellbeing strategy before or you’re struggling to create one that has an impact, keep reading!

We’ll split the process into two parts:

1. Strategy: Data collection and goal setting
2. Execution: Implementation, tools and engagement

1. Strategy: Data collection and goal setting

Taking your first steps

If you’ve never implemented a wellbeing strategy, you’ll want to start with small steps to get you going. 

Firstly, you’ll want to get it on the agenda and start conversations with other senior leaders. Pay close attention to the reaction and determine who’s on board and who needs a little convincing.

Secondly, you need to think proactive, not reactive. While organisations can have wellbeing initiatives that work, they often don’t tie back to a long-term goal with measurable KPIs, so success is always tricky to judge. Think about what you want to achieve long-term.

Thirdly, you need to embrace your culture by understanding workplace wellbeing and what it means to you from a holistic, organisational perspective. Ask yourself some of the following questions to get a better understanding:

• What are your business objectives?
• What challenges are you facing in your organisation?
• What approaches to health and wellbeing have you taken so far?
• What is the current level of engagement in health and wellbeing activities?
• What is important to your people?

Collecting data

There are several ways you can extract data to help develop your wellbeing strategy:

• Staff surveys and focus groups
• Health and safety stats
• Employee assistance programme stats
• Stress audit
• HR data
• Aggregated health data
• Feedback from health champions
• Exit interviews

When you gather your data, consider whether it’s representative of your people, when it was produced, and how relevant and reliable the data is. You’ll also want to consider geographical, cultural, demographical and operational insights.

Goal setting in the three key areas of wellbeing

Getting your vision right will ensure your strategy is well-defined and, therefore, more likely to succeed. There are three areas of wellbeing we advise you to consider when defining what wellbeing means to your organisation:

1. Physical wellbeing

Physical wellbeing relates to creating a company culture where everyone is encouraged to prioritise their physical health and develop a healthy lifestyle to live in a balanced state of body and mind.

2. Psychological wellbeing

Psychological wellbeing relates to creating a company culture where employees can develop resilience and manage stress, feel like they have meaning and purpose, and be happy at work.

3. Social wellbeing

Social wellbeing relates to creating a culture where everyone feels a sense of belonging. People feel valued as colleagues and employees and live your company values. But most crucially, they feel valued as a person – and that’s a powerful feeling to give.

What do these areas of wellbeing mean to your people? Engage people at all levels of your organisation to find out. 

One of the main reasons wellbeing programmes fail is that they don’t represent the people who work for the company. Engage your employees at the earliest stage possible.

Using data to set strategy goals

All successful strategies start with well-defined goals no matter what industry or profession you work in. Use your data to shape your goals, whether it’s quantitative or qualitative. It’ll help give your strategy depth and meaning.

A lack of data is also one of the main reasons employee wellbeing programmes fail. If you don’t base your initiatives on evidence, it’s all down to personal opinion. 

For example, the Workplace Wellbeing Index 2016 report found that 73% of employers offer a cycle to work scheme, even though employees didn’t rate it in the top ten.

In contrast, only 23% of companies offered cancer screening to employees despite being rated as a top-five benefit for effectiveness.

Here’s a hypothetical goal that’s based on evidence:

This year, we had a 54% retention rate, and 82% of exiting employees stated poor work-life balance in their exit interviews. We intend to reduce our retention rate by improving our work-life balance in 12 months.

Defining goals for progress tracking

Before you implement your strategy, you need to consider what KPIs you’re going to measure so you know whether your strategy is a success. Here are some common KPIs:

• Increase employee engagement/motivation
• Reduce absenteeism
• Employee retention
• Work environment satisfaction
• Management style satisfaction
• Improve productivity
• Enhance employment brand
• Support talent management
• Reduce medical plan costs
• Adhere/comply with legislation and HR requirements

We wouldn’t advise picking one from this list, though. Do some digging into your data and allow that to guide you.

Presenting the case for your employee wellbeing strategy

If your strategy gets off the ground, you need buy-in from senior leaders and board members in particular.

To get the buy-in, you need to be clear on your goals and KPIs, how you’ll measure success, what costs and resources you need, and how you’ll tie them to the business plan.

If your planning and goal setting is done well, you should have a compelling, persuasive argument for implementing your strategy. 

Internal or external?

Before you pitch to the board or your manager, think about whether you want to plan, deliver and measure the strategy yourself or get external support.

The most significant advantage of doing it in-house is that you’ll save money. The most crucial disadvantage is that you won’t have the experience and knowledge of someone who’s done it before.

You’ll have access to that knowledge and experience if you outsource, but you need to balance out the cost and ensure you’re getting a reputable person or company.

2. Execution: Implementation, tools and engagement

You can set goals and dream big, but if you don’t have a plan to deliver your wellbeing strategy, you’re going to struggle.

What to consider before you implement your health and wellbeing strategy: Key questions

• How will you communicate the programme?
• What are the resource and time needed?
• How does it link with your diversion and inclusion strategy (if you have one)
• Are you offering training virtually or in person?
• What training will you need for different levels of the business?
• What’s your budget?
• How does the strategy link to your organisational ambition?
• Who are your stakeholders?
• How can you make use of technology? 
• How do you ensure it’s holistic in approach?

Implementing the strategy to different audiences

Much like your customer base, your employees are different people with individual needs, which you need to consider when developing a wellbeing strategy. Here are some examples (not exhaustive) of the different types of people you may have in your organisation:

How will you implement your strategy at different levels?

It would help if you delivered your plan at different levels so that people can care for their wellbeing collectively, individually and on a one-to-one basis.

One-to-one

How will you deliver your strategy to the individual? Do you have people that are Mental Health First Aiders? A functional HR department? Employee Assistance Programmes?

Teams

Are your managers and senior people trained to help people with their health and wellbeing? If not, how will you develop a team of people trained in areas like diversity, resilience and mindfulness?

Self

Are your policies and procedures empowering your people? Do they allow people to care for their wellbeing? Do you have tools, network groups or apps that enable people to practise self-care?

Communication is critical

If you can’t communicate your strategy, you’ll struggle to deliver it, and it won’t connect with your people. Here’s what to consider when you’re thinking about communicating your strategy:

• Stakeholders – who needs to know about your strategy?
• Value proposition – what are you promising your people?
• Cost structure – do you need a budget for comms?
• Team resource – do you need to allocate extra resources to your marketing team?
• Employee segments – do you need to send different messages to different people?
• Channels – what channels will you use? Are people in different places?
• Activities/tools – what activities/tools are you promoting? 

Use tools to engage your employees in the process

You need to identify a range of tools that you can use to deliver all aspects of wellbeing that work for your people.

What do employees want?

Your employees should always guide the use of any wellbeing tools in the workplace. And while generic data can’t be applied to your organisation, here’s what Perkbox found people want in their 2021 survey.

Use audience-driven wellbeing tools

You can also develop audience-focused tools, so you may find in your survey that people that are 16-24 require different tools to the 25-34 group.

For example, women that are going through menopause may require different tools. It’s important not to stereotype, though. Having employees that are all young women doesn’t mean they’re all interested in discounted hair and makeup vouchers.

Use your data to create different employee segments, engage your employees and use them to drive your tool development.

Create tools across the wellbeing spectrum

You’ll need to consider tools for the social, physical and psychological aspects of wellbeing:

• Physical – fitness classes, health measurement tools, health and nutrition advice.
• Psychological – resilience programmes, mental health resources, flexible working policies.
• Social – team days out, charity days, diversity and inclusion policies.

Use the employee experience to create wellbeing tools

You should consider all aspects of your employee experience and how you can use it at different points to gather helpful information about the tools you’re using. Feedback is crucial here.

How do you consider people’s wellbeing at each stage of this process, and what tools do you provide to ensure people maintain a healthy wellbeing level? For example, you may have a policy that states new employees do one less hour per day for their first week, so they don’t burn out.

Using technology

Technology is becoming more common in managing workplace wellbeing, especially with remote working being more common. 

There are tools for performance management, digital wellbeing, burnout, communication, employee engagement and general health and wellbeing.

First, determine what is most important (which should be clear in your strategy), and use it as a directive for your technology.

Engaging and developing the whole organisation

When it comes to using tools, it’s important to get buy-in from everyone. Otherwise, you could be investing in something pointless.

This involves senior management using tools and promoting them throughout the organisation and staff at different levels taking the initiative and using them.

A culture of wellbeing requires everyone’s participation, and the tools you use will give you a clear picture of how engaged people are.

If you need to know your team better, you can use tools like MBTI, Strengthscope and Insights Discovery/Clarity 4D.

Understanding the fundamentals of employee engagement

When it comes to engaging your employees and understanding how well they’re engaging with the programme. Here are some indicators that your strategy is engaging:

• People understand the wider wellbeing strategy
• Senior leaders understand the impact of workplace wellbeing and champion it
• Managers are trained in wellbeing and performance
• Easy access to external providers/apps/portals/activities
• You analyse data around absenteeism, leavers, etc
• Work-related stress & causes of poor health are monitored
• You have a tailored range of practices and activities to suit everyone

Identifying barriers to employee engagement

Implementing a wellbeing strategy isn’t always smooth sailing, and barriers can often prevent success or completely derail the plan. If you can identify those barriers, you’re more likely to overcome them. There are a few potential barriers to engagement that will be different for each organisation, but here are a few common barriers:

1. Senior leadership are not bought into wellbeing
2. Fear that colleagues/managers will perceive it as work avoidance
3. Lack of awareness of wellbeing events

Boosting wellbeing engagement

If you’ve identified barriers to engagement, you’ll want to take action to generate more interest in your wellbeing programme. The most straightforward way to understand how your employees feel about your strategy? Ask! Conduct interviews, surveys and focus groups with your people to discover why they aren’t engaging.

When you have the information, you need to consider how you market and communicate your initiatives and how managers and leaders act in accordance with the strategy. For example, can you incentivise attending sessions? Are you getting the message out through the correct channels?

Measuring the impact of your employee wellbeing strategy

Data will define how you start your project, measure it while delivering it, provide you with the information you need for analysis, and help you develop further strategies. You’ll need a mixture of qualitative and quantitative data to give your strategy depth and meaning. You’ll also need to use your KPI data to determine whether you’ve achieved your goals.

Using The Logic Model

You can use The Logic Model to judge the impact of your wellbeing strategy: 

• Inputs – what resources did you have to dedicate to your project and was it more or less than what you expected?
• Activities – what did you do with the inputs to achieve your goal and did it work?
• Outputs – what was the volume of work you managed to produce and are you happy with the amount?
• Outcomes – how did the strategy benefit your organisation and its people?
• Impact – what is the long-term impact of your strategy?

The post How to plan & execute an employee health & wellbeing strategy appeared first on Investors in People.

Research suggests that we’re currently experiencing a crisis of accidental managers. According to the 2018 CMI manifesto, 2.4 million employees who are not trained in the art of management are promoted into leadership roles solely because of their functional expertise (task based skills). As a result, organisations are diminishing the well-being of their employees and showing signs of inadequate productivity, wasting around £84bn a year.

An accidental manager can be defined as “Someone who has been promoted because of their technical expertise and track record, but lacks the skills and experience in management”.

Research suggests that we’re currently experiencing a crisis of accidental managers. According to the 2018 CMI manifesto, 2.4 million employees who are not trained in the art of management are promoted into leadership roles solely because of their functional expertise (task based skills). As a result, organisations are diminishing the well-being of their employees and showing signs of inadequate productivity, wasting around £84bn a year.

Failing to train new managers in fundamental leadership skills correctly is showcased in these findings. From this, it quickly becomes apparent that current mental health and wellbeing support developed by accidental managers doesn’t accommodate those in need. Visualising this can be challenging, but here are some reasons why.

1.   Delayed Response – Use of Reactive Support Only

There’s an abundance of organisations that employ reactive mental health support, such as Mental Health First Aiders and Employee Assistance Programs. However, these tools are designed to support those most in need, or possibly at a stage of crisis – realistically, companies should not be allowing their people to arrive at this stage in the first place.

The best way to overcome this problem is to integrate mental health culture into the workforce. A company’s culture should be filled with shared goals, values, attitudes, and practices to guarantee all employees know what to do when they feel they need support.

Additionally, it helps identify those that aren’t following company culture, such as accidental managers. When a group of individuals follow the same beliefs and goals, they feel more encouraged to speak about current, unmotivating situations.

2.   Insufficient Strategic Approach

Including the above, there isn’t a satisfactory approach to monitoring, identifying, and solving mental health issues related to accidental managers. Most organisations generate data-driven plans by consolidating information from reports to make more accurate decisions. However, It’s often the case that the same amount of effort isn’t applied to employee well-being.

Just like all business practices, a strategic and data-driven approach must be thought about when reviewing and supporting the current wellbeing of an organisation’s employees. Obtaining this data can be extremely valuable, as it allows organisations to see which areas of the company have a good level of employee wellbeing, and the correlation this has with productivity and performance.

3.   Lack of Transformational Skills

The last area of discussion is the lack of transformational skills that accidental managers show. An accidental manager may understand the transactional skills that they need to perform, often having been in in the role of one of their managed employees previously, but do not show the softer skills required for motivational purposes.

Many people have a misconception that leaders are born, not created. But this is far from correct. With adequate training, new leaders can quickly improve in transformational skills such as curiosity, communication, vision, simplicity and charisma, which will dramatically improve the performance of a department.

The above showcases the insufficient practices which become apparent when placing accidental managers in leadership roles within an organisation. Without well-thought about procedures, monitoring & identifying, and soft management skills, employees mental health and wellbeing can quickly diminish as a result.

‘This article is brought to you by our friends at Lumien’.

Creating high performing, happy teams through Data-Led wellbeing programmes.
Lumien helps organisations understand what drives their employees, making them feel well, supported and motivated.
Lumien is a software platform which allows you to:

Measure your employee’s wellness & productivity
Allow your whole team to understand their own wellbeing and productivity and see how they can improve it. Lumien provides individuals with their own anonymous wellbeing reports, and also provides the company with an aggregated data report.

Understand the impact wellbeing interventions are having
Our reports & recommendations allow you to see changes in productivity across different teams and/or geographies. Whether you’re a small company, or large corporate, our reports adapt to suit you. View what is working, and what is not working, and see where in the organisation the most impact is being created.

Manage & monitor changes within your organisation
Use our action planner to manage your wellness strategy internally, or let us link you with our trusted delivery partners to lower your workload. If you want to run everything yourself, or would like to outsource your wellbeing strategy, we have you covered.

The post Why Accidental Managers Are Damaging Employee Mental Health appeared first on Investors in People.

In February, the BBC published an article stating that mental health issues had worsened across all age groups in the past year.

To put that into perspective:

• 31% of 16-39-year-olds showed signs of depression in June 2020 compared to 10.9% in June 2019.
• 13% of 40-69-year-olds showed signs of depression in June 2020 compared to June 10.4% in 2019.
• 10.3% of 70-and-overs showed signs of depression in June 2020 compared to 5% in June 2019.

And believe it or not, that was a year ago.

In May this year, The Guardian reported that 21% experienced some sort of depression during the second lockdown that began in January, an increase from 19% in November 2020 and more than double the figure reported before the pandemic.

A difficult time for employers and HR professionals

With so many people struggling with their mental or physical health during the pandemic, it was rough terrain for employers and their respective HR departments.

With many people working from home or furloughed, businesses found themselves in unknown territory. How do you keep furloughed employees engaged? Can we retain our staff when business resumes?

Undoubtedly, there have been successes and failures. We’re going to review the good, the bad and the ugly business practices during the pandemic and the impact it could have had on employee mental health.

The Good: Airbnb sets up a host relief fund

The pandemic didn’t start well for Airbnb, who received criticism for refunding all their customers for trips they could no longer attend. Seems fair enough, if you’d paid for a holiday you couldn’t go on, you’d want your money back.

What the company didn’t realise at the time was that they had a workforce they hadn’t considered, the property vendors, who had empty pockets and empty calendars.

Airbnb was quick to rectify the situation, though. They set up a $250 million relief fund that allowed hosts to claim back 25% of what they would get for a standard cancellation.

It’s an example that shows companies can rectify mistakes with swift and honest action and that vendors, buyers and employees are a critical part of your wellbeing initiatives.

How does providing adequate financial support improve mental health?

Physical entities like money, which buys food, shelter and water, are often underestimated when it comes to workplace mental health. While money doesn’t buy happiness, it helps us manage our lives and keep them stable.

• Improves mood – if employees have more money to do the things they love, they’re more likely to have better moods.
• Lowers anxiety – if an employee knows they can pay their bills on time and afford the essentials, they won’t have as much fear surrounding it.

Further reading: 10 companies that took care of their employees through COVID

The Bad: Tim Martin suggests Wetherspoons staff can work in Tesco

Back in March 2020, we all received the order to stay at home, and this is what the next few months were like for everyone in the UK.

Around that time, Wetherspoons founder and chairman Tim Martin posted a video to YouTube. He suggested that if furloughed staff wanted to go and work at Tesco, he would completely understand.

While it didn’t seem like Martin was telling his staff to leave, his video backfired, and the media accused him of ‘telling staff to work at Tesco’.

He also received criticism for saying he wouldn’t pay his staff if their furlough payments didn’t come through on time – the company’s turnover is £1.8 billion.

And with the hospitality industry struggling to recruit as businesses start to reopen, it seems many have inadvertently taken Martin’s advice, with one in ten hospitality workers leaving the industry in the last year. 

Unfortunately, whether it’s well-intentioned or not, telling staff to leave the company if they want to isn’t going to make them feel valued, it’ll have the opposite effect – and with Wetherspoons reportedly struggling for staff since reopening, Tim Martin’s video can’t have done them any favours.

How does devaluing employees affect mental health?

Making employees feel valued is critical if you want to keep them engaged, whether you’re a massive business like Wetherspoons or a small company. If you don’t, it can have consequences for their mental health.

• Lack of motivation – undervalued employees are unlikely to give everything to the job and tend to lack drive and determination.
• Paranoia – if companies leave employees feeling like they aren’t good enough, they may become paranoid about losing their job.
• Low self-esteem – feeling undervalued can lead to employees developing a low opinion of themselves and what they provide to the company.
• Depression – feeling like you don’t serve any purpose at work can lower your mood and make you feel worthless.

Further reading: Does the hospitality industry value its workers enough?

The Ugly: BrewDog CEO receives an open letter from employees

It came at the worst time for BrewDog CEO James Watt. The pubs were opening, life was getting back to normal, and people were starting to go out again, which can only be positive news for a beer brewer that supplies many pubs in the UK.

On the 10th of June, it was reported that 61 former staff signed an open letter to BrewDog accusing the company of a culture of fear. The letter noted the company had become a cult of personality, and everyone from HR to marketing felt scared of the owners.

Here’s an excerpt from the letter:

Put bluntly, the single biggest shared experience of former staff is a residual feeling of fear. Fear to speak out about the atmosphere we were immersed in, and fear of repercussions even after we have left. Hell, the company once set up a staff committee, under the guise of assembling a team of well-respected individuals to tackle cross-departmental projects, who at their first meeting discovered the actual main task of the group was to address the culture of fear in the business.

The story snowballed and picked up national news coverage from the BBC, where CEO James Watt vowed the company would do better and hired a culture consultant to help them diagnose problems. However, the damage to former employees’ mental health is already done.

How does fear impact employee mental health?

We all feel fear from time to time, the big Monday meeting or the new client we need to onboard. But when fear takes over and becomes a theme in our work life, it can have disastrous consequences.

• Dissociation – feeling disconnected from thoughts, feelings, memories and surroundings.
• Helplessness – if employees are scared when they are at work, they’re more likely to feel like they haven’t got anyone to turn to.
• Phobic anxiety – may develop a fear of a particular situation or part of their job, like meetings.
• Mood swings – employee behaviour may become unpredictable.
• Obsessive-compulsive thoughts – getting persistent and unwanted thoughts and not being able to control them.

How will the pandemic affect workplace mental health moving forward?

It’s difficult to say. There’s so much changing at the minute, with talk of a four day work week, a five-hour day, hybrid working, fully remote working and whether working from home should be a legal right. We hope that people’s mental health starts to improve as the government lifts restrictions and people return to work.

If there’s one thing to remember, how you treat your employees in difficult times will be remembered for years, whether good or bad, and it’ll have a lasting impact on employee loyalty, engagement and productivity.

Has your employer helped or made your mental health worse during the pandemic?

We’re surveying workplace mental health and wellbeing, and we want to know how your employer has done. It doesn’t matter what department you work in; everyone’s opinion counts, and everyone’s opinion is different. And it’s 100% confidential.

The post The good, the bad and the ugly: workplace mental health during COVID appeared first on Investors in People.

The common benefit of this people keep highlighting is a better ‘work-life balance‘.

However, this does not make work better, which is the problem leaders should be looking to solve.

‘If we see each other less, things will be easier’

Not everyone gets on with each other, so working from home makes it far easier to not talk to people you don’t want to. Conversations are hidden away in virtual rooms, so nobody can tell if you are deliberately avoiding someone you should be talking to.

It’s a huge part of self-development to work with people you don’t like, as difficult conversations often need to be had, and having them virtually is not the ideal way to have them.

‘Everyone feels trusted to do their work’

But do they feel motivated and inspired to go the extra mile if they feel that nobody is paying attention to how hard they work?

Feeling trusted is great, empowered even more so.

Without motivation though, not so much.

“Happiness is only real when shared”

This was the last thing Christopher McCandless wrote in the film adaptation of his true story. He died alone in Alaska…whilst realising his dreams of travelling solo through the wilderness.

Ask yourself if you feel that you manage to share happiness virtually?

When working alone at home (even as part of a team) it makes celebrating achievements in a meaningful way harder.

“We’ve surveyed everyone to see how they are doing”

Always a good idea, make sure you don’t forget to talk to people though to be sure they are heard properly. Something else to consider is that you need to demonstrate that you have acted on the results of the previous survey first, otherwise people will stop believing in doing them.

“Well I won’t have to sit next to this person anyway”

Are we now hiring differently? What the person is like to sit next to certainly seems to be less relevant. Should we even be doing interviews via a chat messenger to see what they are like with the primary method of interaction we now expect.

Conclusion

Coming back to the final question we asked ourselves, ‘are we now hiring differently’ is the best starting point for you to think about what your approach has become. This is because anyone you have an existing relationship with in your organisation there are norms already established with.

So are you hiring someone because they will make your life as easy as possible, and that as long you don’t have to interact with them or embed them into the organisation things will be great…..in which case you are being lazy.

Look at who you will hire next and the reasons for it, this will show you the true direction you are heading with your people management in this remote new world.

The post Is offering a better ‘work-life balance’ a lazy solution? appeared first on Investors in People.

This will provide a great springboard for driving up further improvements designed to strengthen and embed a sustainable wellbeing culture to help us thrive in the ‘new normal’.

A culture of well-being is much more than an “initiative” or programme of staff support.  It should be seen as ‘just we way we do things around here’ and present us with a permanent change in how work is conducted. The ‘We invest in Wellbeing’ Framework provides us with some great pointers about how to embed a wellbeing culture. The framework is really helpful for development purposes as well as providing public acknowledgement through the accreditation route.

Check list to help strengthen and embed a wellbeing culture

• Consider what lessons have been learnt from the Pandemic to take into your 2021 and beyond wellbeing and people strategy. The following article in Personnel Today provides some useful food for thought;
• https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/an-hr-shift-for-2021-improving-employee-life-experience/

• Be clear about the current and emerging wellbeing needs of your people
• Continue to collect relevant, accurate data and information that helps to establish what the most critical physical, mental and social wellbeing needs of your people are
• Take time to survey your staff, run focus group and access any internal health care information that gives you further insights on this
• Don’t forget to consider generational, ethnicity, gender and role differences in terms of wellbeing needs.

• Set and monitor improvement targets based on your analysis of needs and target future resources around these

• Include a clear and prominent reference about the importance of wellbeing in your business strategy. This will help to show that that it is a fully considered and integrated part of your overall approach to business.

• Make sure your leaders ‘walk the talk’ on wellbeing. Your people need to see that there is a genuine commitment from the top to create a sustainable wellbeing culture.
• Senior leaders can send powerful messages by offering personal stories of wellbeing to their people. Consider how best to communicate these.
• Undertake relevant development to equip all people managers with information and understanding about their role in supporting wellbeing
• Consider how leadership style and approach may impact on the wellbeing of your people – encourage and invite upwards feedback
• Build wellbeing into individual ‘check in’s with your people
• All people managers should demonstrate their own healthy behaviours and practices
• Normalise discussions around mental health in your teams. Encourage people to reflect on and share their own approaches to build awareness of different needs

• Apply a wellbeing lens to your employee journey and to all your HR processes and practices
• Make sure that wellbeing is considered at all stages from pre on boarding through to exit interviews
• Integrate wellbeing into all people processes including; performance management, learning and development, reward and recognition, diversity and inclusion, CSR etc.

• Carry out a programme of education for all your people around the issues that matter
• Using the national health day’s calendar can help to schedule specific aspect of health education; https://www.nhsemployers.org/retention-and-staff-experience/health-and-wellbeing/understanding-your-data/calendar-of-national-campaigns/calendar-of-national-health-and-wellbeing-campaigns-table

• Bring together a group of staff who can take on the role of wellbeing champions
• Wellbeing should not be seen as an ‘HR’ initiative although the HR team will have an important role to play. Consider recruiting and training a group of staff who are passionate about wellbeing to help bring energy, ideas and momentum to your wellbeing approach. The following link from RSSB includes some great information about how to go about this;
• https://www.nsar.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/wellbeing-champion-tool.pdf

• Make it easy for people to find and access education and information

–     Create a wellbeing portal where people can easily see and access information and education about wellbeing support and guidance.

• Evaluate the progress you are making with your wellbeing strategy and report back to all stakeholders.
• On the principle of ‘What gets reported on gets done’ you could include a quarterly or 6 monthly report on wellbeing progress, challenges and objectives to all stakeholders.

The post Practitioner Insights | Embedding a culture of wellbeing appeared first on Investors in People.

SAD is a type of depression linked to the changing of the seasons – in fact 10-30% of those with depression will also experience SAD. The exact causes are still subject to research, but it’s likely that shorter days contribute to a drop in serotonin and melatonin and disrupt our body clocks, and it’s this that leads to feelings of depression, over-sleeping and low energy levels.

So what can organisations do to get the best from these particularly challenging winter months?

We’ve asked our community, and many of the strategies and tactics that can make a difference aren’t new – we’ve either been using them for some time, or rapidly developed them when Covid-19 first emerged.

The steep learning curve we went through earlier in the year will pay dividends now, true to the pattern that discomfort often kindles growth and learning.

Here’s what our community are taking forward as the key lessons for these winter months…

1. Make your own sunshine

As individuals, we can combat SAD by employing a few practical steps. If you have the option, break up your day for longer at lunchtime and make the most of the light levels by getting outside for a walk or pottering in the garden. It can also help to invest time on days where you have higher energy levels on prepping for days when you might feel lower, by making and freezing food, or getting through chores.

Last but not least, sharing how you feel with someone experiencing the same can help you feel less alone and may also be a way to share tips and advice. And remember: every day that passes brings Spring that little bit closer.

2. Keep Experimenting

Organisations have been more adventurous out of necessity this year, and as we go into the winter this is the perfect time to continue trying out new approaches and pilot them within your organisation, whether it’s around the wellbeing of your team or a new business idea. If they show results, roll out more widely – if it doesn’t make an impact, learn from this and move on. For example, try out different Slack apps to boost engagement and morale, or even run competitions for the amount of steps walked each day between different teams.

Look out for the wins that emerged in the last six months and replicate their winning ingredients.

3. Refresh your vision and values

With so much change having occurred this year, now’s the time to revisit organisational vision and values to make sure they are still relevant and fit with your new ways of working. It can also be helpful to run focus groups with the team to see if you’re inadvertently encouraging unhealthy behaviour – for example, a value of ‘Above and Beyond’ could lead some to overwork, increasing the risk of burnout. Running some activities clarifying behaviours and expectation can help with this.

It also never hurts to keep conversations about your vision and purpose fresh, and create opportunities for people to see directly how their work contributes to this.

4. Don’t neglect your People essentials

Putting priorities like performance conversations on pause is a false economy. If you only focus on ‘just doing the job’, people can end up feeling isolated and without direction or purpose, exacerbating existing or developing mental health challenges. There are more demands than ever on our attention, but the core principles of taking care of your team (leading with purpose, supporting and empowering people to do their best work) never goes out of style.

We invest in people was designed with the unique ambitions of each organisation at its heart, so if you’d like some support with aligning your people strategy to meet the business priorities, reach out to see how we can help.

5. Make time for fun and chit chat

We’ve heard from people in non-accredited organisations that they can go days without anyone asking them how they are, or discussing non-work topics – increasing their feelings of loneliness and isolation.

So it’s key to consider how to drive up levels of community and team spirit and to make work fun. A quick call costs little and can transform someone’s day. If you have a core of people that others rally around for this activity, give them permission and a budget (if possible) to help them keep momentum into these winter months. Maybe they could even organise your Christmas party alternative!

6. Keep the spotlight on wellbeing

The pandemic has accelerated the focus on wellbeing at work and we now need to use this momentum to make sure that wellbeing stays centre stage.  If you haven’t already, a good place to start is to review your policies and practices with a wellbeing lens and to make sure they support how you’re working now. Consider whether your culture supports and empowers individuals in the organisation to take care of their mental health.

For further tips and advice on where to get started, consider joining our new health and wellbeing programme or read more here.

7. Flexible is the new 9 to 5

It’s been a positive surprise for most how well (and quickly) we adapted to using more technology to work with each other, and working from home has boosted flexibility in some cases. However, it’s possible that your people may be feeling pressure to be ‘always on’ and responsive, which could stop them from taking the time they need to have breaks and stay well this Winter. Leaders can help with this by taking ‘time out’ themselves and thereby giving permission to their teams to do so too. Actions which demonstrate trust in people, supporting them in working how and when works for them, will fuel productivity and wellbeing.

One lesson we’ve seen in different organisations is the importance of checking in with teams to see how the experience of working in new ways is changing over time, and to respond to any feedback from this.

8. Be human and honest

Leaders are people too and so are therefore just as likely to experience SAD. There is still stigma around expressing challenges with mental health at a senior level, but this year we’ve seen this being challenged as health has become everyone’s number one concern. Just like every other person in a business, if you’re a leader experiencing SAD, it’s important to get the support you need and to talk to someone you trust about how you’re feeling.

Showing vulnerability has become an important capability for everyone, but particularly ‘at the top’. Over the last six months, people have told our Practitioners that where their leaders have been able to connect at a personal and individual level, it’s resulted in much higher levels of trust and transparency.

Leaders asking for help and support creates the safety for others to discuss when they’re struggling, which in turn leads to positive outcomes both for individuals and the business.

9. Embrace realistic optimism

If you had to place your organisational outlook on a spectrum between optimistic and pessimistic, where would you sit? We all have our individual place on this spectrum too. The key is to find a balance between the two outlooks, where you are able to objectively assess the ‘world’ in which you are taking decisions, protect against the worst case happening but still aspire to the best.

To facilitate this in teams, it can be helpful to use strategy tools like PESTLE analysis or SWOT… even the less attractively named ‘Stinky Fish’ activity, which brings the unspoken fears of a team out into the open.

The post 9 tips to avoid being a SAD organisation appeared first on Investors in People.

We all want to do the right thing, but it can be hard to know where to start.

How can we create a culture of wellbeing during a time when so many other areas of focus in a business are both important and urgent, and budgets aren’t necessarily where they were a year ago?

The fact is that if you called a meeting of six people in your business, at any given time one of them is probably experiencing a common mental health problem. Over a year, that rises to 1 in 4. Apart from the moral imperative, it also makes good business sense. A recent Deloitte report showed that the average return on investment for mental health investment is £5 for every £1 spent, and can be as high as 11:1.

The good news? It does not need to be time-consuming, expensive or scary to make progress on building a culture of wellbeing. We’ll share 7 steps here to get you going.

Tip one – get committed

Be honest with yourself. Do you really believe in making a change in this area? The difference between a genuine desire to make progress as opposed to paying lip service will be visible to your team.

Tip two – power in numbers

This is potentially THE takeaway tip here. You can’t do everything alone – ask for help!

I guarantee that buried in your organisation will be a group of people who are passionate about this topic, whether because of lived experience or simply due to a desire to help people around them. Facilitate a working group made up of these home-grown champions, and you’ll automatically have greater buy-in and resource to fuel forthcoming initiatives.

Tip three – ask the audience

Once you’re committed and you’ve got your working group in place, it’s time to put yourself in the shoes of your people. Are workloads unrealistic? Are breaks quietly discouraged? Can you be your whole self? A survey or a series of focus groups is a great way to listen to your team and get some data.

Tip four – be strategic

The data from tip three will tell you which areas need focus, or that can make the biggest difference to the wellbeing of your team. This is great news! You can use these to build a strategy- identifying some goals you’d like your wellbeing activity to achieve. Focussing in on a few areas where you can really move the dial is a much better use of time than a scatter gun approach!

Tip five – don’t reinvent the wheel

More good news – there is SO much support and resource out there which can be accessed at low cost or for free. It’s the solid, proven interventions and ideas you need to look out for – charities like Mind and Samaritans provide leaflets, articles and training through their websites. Why not set up some lunch and learns and get together as a team to explore these?

Tip six – provide, don’t prescribe

No one likes being told what to do or think, so avoid ‘one size fits all’ approaches here. Instead, ensure that there is a wide range of sources of support and advice easily accessible when people need them. This could be an intranet page, posters around the staff areas and in toilets, or having key links in email signatures. Essentially, if one of your team is struggling, they don’t want to do a mental assault course to get to something which might help.

Tip seven – walk the talk

Remember tip one? It’s so important that your commitment is visible, and that your behaviour is consistent. Offering resources on stress and burnout, while simultaneously piling on the work to overloaded team members simply doesn’t make sense. Nor does encouraging people to get active and improve their physical health, if you have an ‘always on’ approach to emails and messages.

As a leader, you can also help to support your managers in role modelling too, empowering them to make healthy choices which will then be seen by their team members as a visible reminder that your organisation is taking the importance of wellbeing seriously.

The post 7 steps to support a culture of wellbeing appeared first on Investors in People.

Calling upon the information found in our research and the ‘We invest in wellbeing‘ framework. This article will help you get started on your journey towards an improved wellbeing strategy, starting with these tips.

Tip 1 – Consider that there are different areas of wellbeing

Our research has concluded there to be 3 different areas which includes social, physical and psychological. So when putting together your wellbeing strategy becoming familiar with this concept is a good place to start.

Social wellbeing – refers to reward and recognition, employee voice, inclusion, diversity, community
activities and family-friendly policies. Is there a culture of team work, trust and
respect? Is the workplace inclusive?

Physical wellbeing – refers to physical activity, nutrition, musculoskeletal and environmental factors.
From staying in shape to keeping illness at bay, physical health can have a big
impact on how well people can work.

Psychological wellbeing – refers to mental health, sleep, rest, or financial wellbeing. It’s important that people are able to be open about their own experiences with mental health. Feel comfortable to speak up when they disagree with the boss. And that there are programmes available to support them when these things are hard.

Suggested activities

Consulting staff will provide you with the right queues and ideas to design the best ways of supporting them.  Collecting data across the board should be always a priority when implementing a workplace wellbeing strategy.

Social wellbeing: careful office design, choirs, voluntary work/fund raising, working groups, social activities, cross-communities interaction, culture differences celebration.

Physical Wellbeing: (also benefits mental resilience) Health assessments, medical insurance and health care cash plans, running clubs, discounts on gym membership, smoking cessation, dietary changes in canteens, physiotherapy, Pilates, reflexology, challenges, fit bits, standing desks.

Psychological wellbeing: Prevention and management Stress audits, counselling, meditation, yoga, stress management, mental health first aid training, resilience training, EAP, work life balance policies, financial advisory plans.

Tip 2 – Look at some of the key wellbeing drivers

• Leadership involvement – For a wellbeing strategy to work, it’s very important that there is involvement from all the vertical structures within the organisation to ensure the message spreads across all people. A culture of openness helps a lot with this too.
• Employee control over their work and decision making.
• Values that support an inclusive, supportive, interesting work environment
• Consistent and effective line management practice that actively supports the wellbeing of staff.
• People believing there is a higher purpose to the organisation with an understanding of how they can contribute to this
• People undertaking the learning and development they need to achieve job satisfaction
• Flexibility within the working environment to increase people’s sense of control allowing them to improve their work-life balance
• A focus on minimising and managing stress and improving mental health at work as these are leading causes of sickness absence
• Support to participate in wellbeing related activities and time to do it!
• A focus in diversion and integration as well as encouragement in team communication and participation

Tip 3 – Evaluate the financial return

When making decisions about whether to do anything motivation always comes from looking at the potential benefits.

How will your organisation benefit financially from the wellbeing strategy you create.

If UK organisations were able to reduce the scale of these problems that would be a great start…

0
Million work days lost to mental health related issues
0
billion pounds is what poor mental health could be costing the UK

Tip 4 – Identify the causes of stress and poor employee mental wellbeing

Because stress is endemic across the UK workforce, it’s important for employers to understand which factors contribute most to their workers feeling this way. Our survey, found that the greatest pressure felt by workers was workload. 40% claim that having too much on their agenda resulted in stress. The survey also revealed that a significant proportion of the labour market would feel that their mental health would be better supported at work if their organisation were to provide more training for line managers.

0
%
Workload
0
%
Poor management
0
%
Challenging targets
of workers would rather have a comprehensive healthcare package than a 3% pay rise
27%
of employees would rather have a trustworthy manager than a 3% pay rise
25%
20% would rather have support for their mental health at work than a 3% pay rise
50%
of workers have considered leaving their current job due to stress.
35%

Tip 5 – Identify the strategic goals for your plan

Here are some examples –

• Desire to be an Employer of Choice – wellbeing can be a differentiator and help to recruit and retain talent
• Ensuring people can perform at their best at a sustained level – providing good leadership and support, empowerment and appropriate development
• Compliance and risk management – carrying out an organisational duty of care – this includes compliance with Health and Safety legislation
• Minimising absence and driving up productivity – considering aspects such as effective management, levels of autonomy and clear performance targets
• Creating a positive culture of health and wellbeing – This should be fully embedded with the business strategy and underpinned by the organisational values
• Reducing the costs of ill health provision – focusing on effective management of sickness and absence, recruitment costs associated with high levels of attrition etc.

Tip 6 – Follow these stages to develop your employee wellbeing strategy

1. Determine the needs of your employees.
2. Agree the priorities, objectives and resources.
3. Identify the stakeholders.
4. Agree a programme of support and activities.
5. Communicate and manage the programme.
6. Monitor, assess the results and identify improvements.

Tip 7 – Consider what managers should focus on when implementing it

• Communicating effectively.
• Minimising stress and building resilience.
• Supporting the work life balance of their staff.
• Demonstrating awareness of the issues affecting people’s health and wellbeing.
• Developing an open culture where staff feel able to discuss their problems.
• Learning about mental health enabling them to judge when they need to refer employees to outside help
• Ensuring that they are aware of the wellbeing strategy and encouraging their teams to participate of it
• Prioritising people’s wellbeing above anything else
• Having regular catch-ups dedicated to wellbeing where they can really understand pressing concerns

Tip 8 – Have an assessment to see where you are at

The wellbeing journey starts with the creation of a strategy, but it doesn’t end there.

Investors in people can assess your strategy and help you identify and prioritise the areas that require more attention.

• As you implement your wellbeing strategy you will come across all types of challenges, perhaps one of the most common is to proof or identify a return of investment.
• Wellbeing is about behavioural change and as such proving any benefits directly related to the strategy can be tricky. We can help you as a guide to find out where you are in that journey.
• The accreditation will measure you against a series of topics for each of the three areas of physical, psychological and social wellbeing.
• Having visibility of the progression of your wellbeing journey is a fantastic way to measure success and it provides evidence for the case of wellbeing at work.
• In addition it will help you raise the profile of your organisation with an accreditation recognised across the country and in turn attract new talent.

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