D
Catalyst | Diversity
Avoid ‘sticking-plaster interventions’ for wellbeing
W
ellbeing is mainly
influenced by the
characteristics
of people’s jobs, writes
André Spicer, professor
at Cass Business School,
City University London.
The average UK employer loses 30
productive days of work a year for
each employee due to poor wellbeing,
according to research by insurance
company VitalityHealth. This has led
many companies to introduce wellness
programmes. In the US, the Employer
Health Benefits 2018 Survey shows that
53% of small firms and 82% of large
firms have some kind of workplace
wellness programme. In the UK, recent
research found that 62% of workplaces
offer some kind of wellness initiative.
Despite all the time, money and
effort spent supporting workplace
wellness, many programmes fail.
A recent randomised clinical trial
by researchers at the University of
Chicago found that while people who
participated in a wellness programme
said they felt healthier, their objective
health measures didn’t change. Nor
was there any change in productivity.
If workplace wellness programmes
are so ineffective, what can be done?
Findings of a report for the UK
government (Does Worker Wellbeing
Affect Workplace Performance?), show
that wellbeing is mainly influenced
by the characteristics of people’s jobs.
Subjective wellbeing tends to be higher
when employees have autonomy over
how they do their job and a measure
of control in relation to the broader
organisation; variety in their work;
clarity over what is expected of them,
including feedback on performance,
and opportunities to use and develop
their skills (to name but a few of the
relevant factors).
In his book The Workplace is
Killing People and Nobody Cares,
Stanford University’s Jeff Pfeffer
argues that workplace stress, insecure
employment, the erosion of work/life
boundaries and unsafe workplaces
have the biggest impact.
If you are serious about employee
wellbeing, don’t just give your people
a mindfulness class and cheap gym
membership. You need to re-design
work and the workplace. Here
are four interventions which can make
a difference.
1
Allow employees to make
progress. The number one thing
that determines whether or not
employees say they’ve had a good
day at work is whether they’ve made
progress on a meaningful task. As
Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer
explain in The Progress Principle, it’s
this forward momentum that creates
the best inner work lives.
Make employees happy by ensuring
there is time each day which is free
from interruptions such as meetings,
calls and emails.
2
Set a stop time. To encourage
wellbeing, set boundaries between
work and life. This could be clear
starting and stopping times. You could
also stop work bleeding into people’s
non-work time by introducing a no
email at evenings or weekends policy.
3
Weed out toxic people.
‘Workplace jerks’ can corrode
the wellbeing of their fellow workers.
Circumstances can be significantly
improved by ensuring toxic people
are re-educated or removed, according
to Stanford University professor and
organisational psychologist Bob
Sutton. Poor behaviour should not be
tolerated from anyone.
4
Be an umbrella carrier. Many
organisational initiatives achieve
little apart from stoking anxiety and
undermining wellbeing. Swedish
management scholar and professor
of business administration at Lund
University Mats Alvesson calls on
managers to shield their people from
unnecessary or damaging initiatives,
and information raining down from top
management above, to allow for good
professional work to take place below.
André Spicer
“Don’t just give your people a mindfulness
class and cheap gym membership”
Issue 4 - 2020
75