The Wellbeing Tickbox

Workplace Wellbeing Isn't Another Meeting!

If I hear the word wellbeing one more time this week, I might need another wellbeing webinar to recover from it. 

Workplaces have wellbeing strategies, wellbeing champions, wellbeing Wednesdays, wellbeing newsletters, wellbeing surveys, wellbeing months.

There are posters reminding us to breathe, apps reminding us to meditate, webinars reminding us to drink more water.

And yet, people are still exhausted.

Before anyone reaches for the complaints form, this isn't an argument against workplace wellbeing, it's exactly the opposite. I think wellbeing is one of the most important responsibilities any organisation has, I just don't think talking about wellbeing is the same thing as creating it.

If your roof leaks every time it rains, you might reach out for help. Instead of fixing the roof, that someone places scented candles in every room. They're nice candles, they smell of patchouli and sandalwood. Roof's still leaking though...

An organisation introduces mindfulness sessions while workloads continue to grow, offer resilience training while rewarding people for working evenings and weekends and provide access to counselling while managers continue creating the conditions that require counselling in the first place.

It's difficult to meditate your way out of impossible expectations.

Despite best intentions of those who are trying to fix the issues, we've accidentally made wellbeing another task for employees. Complete your resilience course; join the lunchtime yoga class; download this mindfulness app; remember to switch off after work... Just, after you've answered those three emails that came in at 8:45pm.

The message becomes contradictory. This organisation cares deeply about your wellbeing, we're just not changing anything that's making you unwell.

The irony is that wellbeing at work rarely improves with adding something, it usually begins by removing things.

Removing unnecessary meetings.

Removing conflicting priorities.

Removing ambiguity.

Removing cultures where people are rewarded for exhaustion rather than effectiveness.

Removing confusion around urgency vs importance.

I see a similar pattern with individuals. People often search for the next technique that will make them feel better, which could be anything from a new breathing exercise to another productivity enhancing software. Sometimes those things can help, not knocking those efforts. But more often the breakthrough comes from stopping the thing that's causing the stress in the first place.

If a therapist recommends an individual explores solutions like boundaries, rest and clarifying expectations, then is the same advice not just scalable for organisational wellbeing?

Real workplace wellbeing isn't built in the HR calendar, it's built in everyday decisions.

Can someone question a task or say no without fear?

Can they admit they've made a mistake?

Can they take annual leave without returning to hundreds of emails?

Can they leave on time without apologising?

Can managers ask, "What can we stop doing?" as often as they ask, "What else can we introduce?"

Those questions tell you far more about an organisation's commitment to wellbeing than the number of webinars it offers.

While these things can be pleasant ideas, wellbeing isn't a fruit basket, it isn't a motivational poster and it isn't an awareness week. It's the cumulative effect of thousands of small decisions that either make work more sustainable or drain the people doing it.

Wellbeing is a very basic question:

What are we doing that is making people less well... and are we brave enough to stop doing it?

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