Don’t worry, be happy: Chance to win £1m!!

Hi,

How does the song go…..

The landlord say your rent is late
He may have to litigate
Don’t worry, be happy
Look at me, I’m happy

Oo, oo-oo-oo, oo-oo-oo, oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo
Don’t worry
Oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo
Be happy
Oo-oo-oo-oo-oo
Don’t worry, be happy…….

Sorry I thought the title of the blog and song would entice you to read on……cheap trick I know….but now you’re here…..

Let me quickly get the boring formal stuff out of the way, this blog is for my personal leadership opportunity / ‘change challenge’ at Cambridge University.

However, don’t let that put you off as I’m really keen to explain why (in my personal / professional opinion) employee wellbeing is as crucial to an organisation as their products and services.

Why? well let me hit you with some hard (and alarming) facts by the CIPD

• The average cost of absence now stands at £554 per employee per year
• Fewer than one in ten (8%) of UK organisations currently have a standalone wellbeing strategy that supports the wider organisational strategy.
• The majority of employers are more reactive than proactive in their approach to wellbeing (61%).
• Almost two-fifths of employees (38%) are under excessive pressure at work at least once a week.
• 43% say that long hours working is the norm for their organisation (to a great or moderate extent).
• Wellbeing is taken into account in business decisions only to a little extent, or not at all, in the majority (57%) of cases.
• Less than two-fifths of organisations monitor the cost of employee absence

Let me say that again, “Less than two-fifths of organisations monitor the cost of employee absence“What?!?! how can that be the case……if that’s true then my organisation is wasting £ms and doesn’t know why. Can you imagine any other cost on your P&L making this level of impact and having no strategy for it……?

I’m really shocked by the above list, when explained in that way it seems very strange that most businesses don’t offer a standalone wellbeing strategy within the UK. Wellbeing is extremely subjective and resides within the total experience of the individual, just thinking about that makes me worry about the complexities of a wellbeing programme.

The best wellness programmes bring the built environment, company policies, and leadership messaging under a single mission of wellness. For example, Safeway redefined its core business from “a grocery company with a wellness program,” to “a wellness company that happens to sell groceries.

I also love Google’s wellness strap-line:

Benefits that are part of who we are as a business, designed to take care of the whole you and keep you healthy, whether physically, emotionally, financially or socially

Emotionally…….that’s odd, why would any organisation view their employees as anything other than an asset to exploit…………

Both of the above examples are US companies, this got me thinking why, why is ‘wellness known and actively embraced within arguably a similar country to the UK (in terms of consumerism and western culture).

Maybe US companies have to actively care for their employees wellbeing due to company health insurance premiums, intern employees themselves seek this out as a benefit in kind due to private health insurance costs within the USA.

Luckily (some would say) within the UK we have a National Health Service (NHS) paid for by the tax payer. The NHS is free at the point of access, meaning that no matter what your job, status or insurance is, everyone is entitled to health care.

Does this make UK employees less concerned about their wellbeing as a result? Probably not, however an overtly financial metric (health insurance cost / risk) to incentivise UK companies  to invest in wellbeing  is lost as a result of the NHS.

I’m not suggesting for a second that the UK health system goes private, watch this video and those of you familiar with the NHS will understand the value of it: Just watch the first three minutes…..insane!!!

Moving on, looking at ‘what good looks like’ within a wellbeing strategy drives me to explore an interesting list of companies:

• DHL
• fitbit
• Virgin
• Netflix
• Johnson & Johnson
• Network Rail
• Royal Mail

All very different organisations, however all have a very common thread running throughout their amazing wellbeing strategies:

• Effective communication strategies:

Employ strategies to communicate wellbeing programme information to employees, ranging from face-to-face interaction to mass dissemination. Review cited the importance of broad outreach and clear messaging from organisational leaders

• Opportunity for employees to engage:

Making wellbeing activities convenient and easily accessible for all employees are strategies to raise the level of employee engagement

• Leadership engaged at all levels:

Evidence from case studies suggests that for programmes to be a success, senior managers need to consider wellbeing an organisational priority to shift the company culture. Buy-in from direct supervisors is crucial to generate excitement and connect employees to available resources

• Use of existing resources and relationships:

All organisations leverage existing resources and build relationships, often with health plans, to expand offerings at little to no cost

• Continuous evaluation:

Approach wellbeing with a continuous quality improvement attitude

Wellbeing covers loads and loads of topics:

This only goes to confirm the subjective  nature of wellbeing, so where do I begin……..

There are plenty of models out there that suggest a simple step-by-step approach to wellbeing, two prominent models are Gallups five forces and the Health and Safety Executives Management Standards- Stress.

Gallups Five Elements to Wellbeing:

• Career
• Social
• Financial
• Physical
• Community

According to Gallup, if you have all five elements in place you’re one happy bunny…however while 66% of UK people are doing well in at least one area, just 7% are thriving in all five!!

The Health and Safety Executives Management Standards- Stress:

• Demands
• Control
• Support
• Relationships
• Role
• Change

The Health and Safety Executive argues that stress is a major issue drawing down on peoples wellbeing and that the total number of working days lost due to work-related stress, depression or anxiety  in the UK was 11.3 million in 2013/14.

I take issue with this ‘check list’ process to wellbeing. The Health and Safety Executives Management Standards- Stress  model is broad to encourage multi sector adoption, however it has been criticized for ignoring some important issues such as boredom and work overload that also contribute to stress. It also does not take into account the whole picture of wellbeing by focusing exclusively on work related stress, research would suggest that wellbeing is more complex.

Gallups Five Elements model is again broad to encourage multi sector adoption, however only 7% of the UK population has all five in balance, whilst 66% are thriving in just one area, making it difficult to sell into an organisation as a model for wellbeing. Also, the model seems to imply that wellbeing is only due to external factors, whereas mental health, which is arguably a key component of wellbeing, can also arise from internal factors such as chemical imbalances.

Nevertheless, an amalgamation of the two above models, taking into account your organisations culture and values, could yield interesting results to guide and build internal credibility for a wellbeing strategy. A bespoke wellbeing model could also become a piece of competitive advantage…..

To begin this, my thoughts are to build the business case for wellbeing, why do we need this (£) within my organisation. Aligning the hard financials (absence, turnover, retention, service delivery) to the vision and culture of the business seems a logical place to start.

This is my  personal leadership challenge, for me this is not just about implementing a strategy to reduce cost, it’s about making lives better for our direct / indirect employees.

I can’t do this alone, so please, any and all feedback is welcome.