Wellbeing in the workplace

Employee wellbeing is a tricky topic. Like anything where lots of people are involved, it is full of untold complications.

Not just because there are a variety of attitudes and opinions, both spoken and unspoken. But equally, because it is difficult to assess who is responsible for what.

It is very easy to argue that an employee’s own wellbeing is the employee’s own responsibility. Self-care, self-compassion…so many of the success factors around wellbeing are a matter of individual choice. What you eat, how you exercise, how you think, that’s down to you, right?

Well yes, definitely. An employer can provide healthy food but if the staff insist on having lechon all the time what can you do?  

But on the flip side, employee burnout is bad for business.

70% of young workers in the Philippines are struggling to cope at work, and Manilla holds the dubious position of being the 5th in a global league table for employee burnout.

Burnout always makes me think of the old Pinoy proverb, Ang sakit sa kalingkinan ay ramdan ng buong katawan; the pain in the little finger is felt by the whole body.

So what can a business do to look after its “little fingers”? Where is the line drawn, and could it be re-drawn, so everybody benefits?

What is wellbeing at work?

Wellbeing is more than simple ‘wellness.’

Wellness refers to steps an individual can take to avoid illness, stay fit, and look and feel good.

Over 50,000,000 Instagram posts use the hashtag #wellness to inspire people to make healthy choices around diet and exercise – and more often than not, try and sell them something: a cookbook, personal training session, skincare product, yoga retreat, mindfulness app. Or even an hour in a sensory deprivation floatation tank. All in the name of self-care.  

Global management consulting firm McKinsey estimates that the global wellness industry is worth $1.5 trillion USD and it is growing around 5-10% per year. That’s a lot of people working on themselves.

Wellbeing is more holistic, looking beyond physical and mental health to examine some of the drivers behind them. According to the global research firm, Gallup, five key themes add up to a thriving life:   

• Physical wellbeing
• Career wellbeing
• Financial wellbeing
• Social wellbeing
• Community wellbeing

These are big themes. It’s clear to see in the above list that there is some overlap of responsibilities between the individual and the collective group, the company. 

Let’s look at some of them in more detail.

What companies can do to promote wellbeing at work

What we are talking about here is more than a box-ticking, off-the-peg corporate wellness programme. We’re talking about gearing up a company to succeed, by addressing as many of its people risk factors as possible.

Corporate wellbeing starts in the hearts and minds of individual employees and their managers

Employee perception is everything. For example, if an employee had some trouble going on in their life, would they know where to turn? Simply put, would a stressed-out employee be able to talk to about what is going on in their lives, whether it was work-related or not?

This is a question of the employees’ relationship with their line managers, and in turn, how those managers are managed by senior leadership. And additionally, what level of training managers are given.

I remember a survey a few years ago that found 98% of managers felt they needed more training. I’m guessing the 2% who thought they didn’t were overconfident in their own abilities!

It’s becoming more fashionable to give managers access to mental health training, teaching them how to recognise the signs of stress and mental health problems. Part of this is understanding how they themselves might contribute, and what they can do about it, because little things managers do accidentally may be having an unintended negative effect on an employee’s wellbeing.  

This is vital because people tend to overemphasise the negative. According to David Sack MD, people tend to “assume the worst, or filter out the good in a situation and pay attention only to the bad. Or we may overgeneralize or jump to conclusions.”

Employers need to develop and embed a robust – but forever evolving - wellbeing strategy that promotes openness around mental health. Managers play an important part in this, because they are on the frontline, and they can be the cause and the cure.

Additionally, and especially in a culture where managers are less approachable than they could be, you might consider an Employee Assistance programme. This provides employees confidential access to counsellors, financial advisors and mental health support, so your employees have somewhere to turn when they are in trouble.

Career wellbeing, highs and lows

A happy employee is a productive employee and for many people, the chance to better themselves is a powerful motivator. You can have all the free fruit and exercise classes you want, but if you’re not the sort of company that promotes from within, there can be a prevailing sense that all is not well.

Depending on the company structure, you may lack the clear structured career paths good talent wants. That’s not necessarily a deal-breaker for talent. But be sure to make access to new opportunities, let people investigate new projects and interests. Find new things that they are good at. Learning and development is certainly an area not to let your competitors outpace you. Even if you do have to find creative ways to promote a learning culture up when budgets have been cut.  

Problems can arise when career wellbeing is pursued at the expense of physical wellbeing. Physical wellbeing efforts are easily side-lined in times of acute stress. In fact, they’re often the first things to slip when work gets a little hectic – as anyone who ever forgot to eat lunch or shower during an intense day of Zoom calls can attest to.

Sometimes mental wellbeing seems to be desperately reliant on career success. That’s a dangerous road to go down because that’s the route to burnout.

There’s a really interesting research study, “Is grittiness next to happiness?” which examined some traits that lead to good wellbeing outcomes. The study sees ‘grit’ as the key factor in feeling good and flourishing at work. It defines grit as the ability to persevere, stay engaged in tasks and be adaptable to situations. 

To have gritty people, you could find ways to test and measure for grit during your recruitment and selection process. Hire for grit because gritty people know how to bounce back from the inevitable disappointments and stressful periods.

Another study into grit found that people who have grit seem to be disproportionally disposed to practising mindfulness, and mediation.

Which begs the question, which comes first, the mindfulness or the grit?

Encouraging your people to take part in mindfulness activities as part of a self-care regime helps people build their inner grittiness.

The mind needs a rest as much as the body does, and rarely does it get the chance, as the brain works days and nights.

Facilitating activities that help quieten the mind and let the brain enter a state of deep rest, need not be expensive or complicated. You can lay on immersive mindfulness activities like group yoga or art classes, or you can provide access to mindfulness classes that introduce people to the techniques involved.

Money worries and financial wellbeing

Your employees might not be poor, but they may be living pay-check to pay-check, with little resilience to financial shocks. That’s really common – after all, 7 out of 10 people in the Philippines don’t have a bank account.

Financial literacy goes go hand in hand with financial wellbeing, and a lot of people need some help with that, as Standard & Poor found out when their research revealed only 25% of Filipino adults are financially literate.

This does make it something of a national crisis.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas is undertaking a huge project to bring financial education to nearly 60million people in the Philippines, teaching them the very basics: interest rates, smart use of credit, the basic concepts of investing and insurance.

The programme is being rolled out through many national bodies, including the Department of Trade and Industry. Your people might be eligible for the education programme. If so, I suggest you enrol them, because being more savvy with money can make a big difference to their stress levels. 

If not, you might take it upon yourself to provide access to similar education programmes, which Howden could help you arrange. 

If you wish to step in more directly, you can provide access to emergency loans than can be repaid through the employees’ pay packet – this can get people used to saving and investing, and turn a negative into a positive long term.

Income protection insurance is also something you might consider to boost morale in financial wellbeing. It can provide breadwinners with the reassurance that their families would be provided for, at least for a while, if they passed away. Death-in-service cover is one of the most valued employee benefits a company can provide.

You may wish to look into retirement insurance too – it can be a cost effective, tax efficient way to give your employees more for their retirement.

Much of financial literacy is about the future: how well you are prepared for it, and how much you worry about it.

Unprepared people may not worry too much, until a financial shock hits them, and then they are completely overwhelmed. Others may worry more about the future, wish to do more to prepare, but not know what they are doing.

There’s a lot an employer can do to help, if they choose to.

Social and community wellbeing

Not every company starts with a grand vision to change the world, but every company can aspire to a feeling of genuine community, where everyone feels welcome and part of something.  

Loneliness at work was a pandemic before the pandemic – and working from home has hardly made it easier.

Social wellbeing, on the other hand is the opposite to loneliness: developing meaningful relationships with others and sustaining them. In other words, friendship.

And friendship is good for business. Gallup research found a clear correlation between having a best friend at work and how engaged an employee is.

So how can you facilitate friendship at work? There are two main ways really:

1. Organising fun events for people to attend and meet others
2. Encourage interdepartmental / cross-functional collaboration

Oftentimes, the latter will be the one that leads to more sustainable friendship, as the period of requisite adhesion and a shared goal helps people bond.

That’s not to say that people cannot bond at parties, so a busy calendar of social activities can be a big help in this area too. Obviously, that’s not been possible for a while – maintaining social wellbeing is particularly tricky during this time.  

But at the same time, before the pandemic, how many of your colleague’s children and pets could you name? And how many now?

During the pandemic we have seen more into each others’ ‘real life’ than ever before, meeting each other's children and pets on Zoom calls, and empathising with each others’ challenges trying to find some sort of life-work balance, while trying to keep our heads together and our spirits up.

It’s not been easy, but for a lot of people, it has brought something of a sense of togetherness and mutual empathy. Long may it continue, whether working from home, or back in the office.

The little things might be bigger than you think

“Sorry, about this, the computer’s going slow today…” We’ve all heard that one, haven’t we?

As a HR professional, you might feel you have little control over things like how the IT works. But they may be more of a factor in people leaving than you think.

An American study suggested 49% of staff would leave their jobs due to frustrations with the internal technology. One to mention to the IT department perhaps, during a cross-functional collaboration (you never know, you might even make a new friend).

The role of an employee benefits and wellbeing plan

Ten years ago, most people wouldn’t have talked about mental health, other than to call someone baliw.

Today, it is a workplace essential.

Nadera (2020) defined mental health as "the science and art of promoting and protecting mental capital, mental health, emotional wellbeing, preventing mental illness, and prolonging life and the quality of life through society's organized efforts.”

Your employees are your best asset, and in turn, their best asset is their mental capital.

In essence, the health of your business relies on the mental health of your employees.

An employee benefits & wellbeing strategy can help address all the key five pillars of wellbeing: Career, Social, Community, Financial and Physical

If you would like to find out how you can give your clients more, without breaking you budget, speak to us.

Howden presents the most methodical and scientific way to make sure you get value for more from your employee benefits and wellbeing efforts. Discover more about our employee benefits and how they work.

Wellbeing in the workplace is every individual employee’s responsibility, but it cannot possibly be achieved without an organised, sustained effort of all of those around them. It is a team effort, and HR needs to show leadership.

The pandemic has highlighted something that deep down we all knew, but can sometimes forget.

People are more than a resource. They are fully-fledged, rounded human beings with stuff on their mind and a lot on their plate. By remembering this basic fact, and working together, we can help protect people's wellbeing and mental capital.