Employee wellbeing - what would really help?

[paralysedbyinertia]

I'm starting a new job soon, and one of my first priorities will be to address the issue of staff wellbeing, which I understand has suffered over the last year for a range of different reasons.

Obviously, once I get started, I will be consulting staff about what they think would make the biggest difference to their experience of work, but I'm keen to get a headstart on thinking about this if at all possible.

So, I'm really interested to know what workplace initiatives have made a significant difference to your wellbeing at work, and/or what you would like your employer to put in place in order to make your work life easier and more enjoyable.

I will have the power to make significant changes to working practices, but not much financial resource to play with, if that makes any difference to your answers!

Thank you in advance for your suggestions!

I work in financial services, so my opinion may be very different to those working in frontline NHS (who I have the upmost respect for btw)

• overtime should be the exception not the rule
• people should not be penalised looked upon unfavourably for saying no
• micromanaging should be actively looked for/monitored
• avoid lip service to “great culture” when you actually have very unhappy employees
• an approachable, trustworthy not gobshitey HR department
• succinct, measurable objectives for all employees
• clear paths to pay rise/promotions
• enough people to carry the workload
• less focus on sending out hoards of emails about how the company cares for your mental health/wellbeing but in reality will drop you like a ton of shit if this does occur
• some way to provide feedback, potentially anonymously, on managers/senior managers

this is probably the most outward:

• recognition that everybody cannot work on flexible working/reduced hours because it just does not work, people need to be there to do the job they are paid to do during core hours (obviously this varies greatly by business) too much parental flexibility breeds resentment amongst childless employees particularly if they are expected to “pick up the slack”

Yes, agreed re managers walking the talk and modeling a decent work life balance.

Laughed at the point about mental health first aid. I did the MHFA course at my old workplace, and agree that a lot of the people on it were those who struggled most with their mental health. Not necessarily a bad thing if they can empathise, but you do need people who others will actually approach, and who can respond well without projecting their own shit onto situations.

I like the idea of the open door policy, and the team approach to problem solving.

Love the idea of the ping pong ball survey! And also the employee-nominated thank yous tied to some kind of reward "raffle". Nice way to encourage some positive feedback between teams.

Thanks @Hollyhocksarenotmessy for your suggestions, lots to think about there.

Nobody paid so little that they're eligible for universal credit.

My employer does all the team building, treats through the post, links on the intranet to YouTube mediation videos and all the rest of that crap.

But, a significant amount of staff earn less than £20k. And no amount of flapjacks in their letter boxes is going to make up for that.

A lot of those same staff have been in the office throughout the pandemic while none of the senior staff have. Again, this is v poor for morale, so I'd advise to avoid such a situation.

@Mabelface

We have an anonymous survey done twice a year. Managers don't know who has said what as we use an external company to collate the data. Definitely look at inclusion and reasonable adjustments for those who need them.

I used to manage on of these for employee wellbeing and they can be useful but only as a general guide, opinion tracking or as a starting point for identifying areas for deeper discussion. For example, in my place managers used to force employees to fill them in despite it clearly being voluntary. I always felt this skewed the results somewhat as people whipped through it quickly, using the ‘neither agree nor disagree’ box a lot. (*) Far better to let it be completely voluntary process as you will get genuine responses rather than forced, and high and low response rates are a valuable piece of information themselves.

(*) don’t ever give a “neither agree nor disagree” option, gives people an easy answer and no useful data for you!

Proper induction processes which enable members of staff to settle in quickly, and currently which accommodate working in this strange new Covid world. Having a real and ongoing focus on MH. Cutting out stupid procedures which add no value. Having an employee counseling service which actually responds to requests. Creating opportunities for people to see each other and build up working relationships. Tackling bullying properly, not just listening and backing up the manager.

My husband started a new job 3 months ago, without any proper induction and for a can't be arsed manager. Basic stuff needs doing well - like no IT for 3 weeks, kit which doesn't work, no explanation of systems and processes, not getting paid. He's currently off sick with stress, having a breakdown, unlikely to return. And in his situation some analysis of what has gone wrong and how to improve - he's since learnt that his predecessor also had a breakdown and left due to stress 😥

@SuziQuatrosFatNan

Nobody paid so little that they're eligible for universal credit.

My employer does all the team building, treats through the post, links on the intranet to YouTube mediation videos and all the rest of that crap.

But, a significant amount of staff earn less than £20k. And no amount of flapjacks in their letter boxes is going to make up for that.

A lot of those same staff have been in the office throughout the pandemic while none of the senior staff have. Again, this is v poor for morale, so I'd advise to avoid such a situation.

Totally get your point, thank you. I would hope that all staff are paid a decent living wage, but I don't have this data yet.

Really good strategic planning, filtered down to meaningful personal objectives. Having the policies to hold people to account for poor performance early enough to stop their workload being carried by the rest of the team.

Good performance and hard work for people's actual jobs being rewarded. Not constantly just recognising people who decide to be the Diversity Champion or Employee Well-being Ambassador. These things are important, but often take over people's substantive roles - and their actual work gets handed out to the rest of the team.

Thank you for your insights @Ohdeariedear. Will remember the point about not giving people a fence sitting option!

Sorry that your dh has had such a bad experience, @Iamnotavicar. Your points re staff induction are useful.

@Candleabra

Really good strategic planning, filtered down to meaningful personal objectives. Having the policies to hold people to account for poor performance early enough to stop their workload being carried by the rest of the team.

Good performance and hard work for people's actual jobs being rewarded. Not constantly just recognising people who decide to be the Diversity Champion or Employee Well-being Ambassador. These things are important, but often take over people's substantive roles - and their actual work gets handed out to the rest of the team.

Thanks. Agree re strategy that is translated into meaningful personal objectives. It's an interesting one as to how you ensure that some employees aren't being "carried" by others, but an important one to get to the bottom of.

@Oenanthe

More emphasis on what you can do, much less on what you are like.

In other words, reduce focus on 'behaviours' (aka personality), about which most of us can do very little.

Remember that only a robot brings its whole self to work. Recognise that the vast majority of people are exhanging their time and effort for a salary and the last thing they want or need is to 'live the company's values'.

I have to disagree with this. If a colleague is a miserable git - just for the sake of it, e.g. no underlying health issues - you do need to focus on behaviours.

Also, values are very important and should align with where the company is going. Don't work for a company if it doesn't align with your values. If you are going to work just to get paid this isnt good for anyone.

Fair and even distribution of work - using an actual system rather than “whoever I bumped into in the lift” or “I always give work to X because I know her from way back” or “I don’t give work to Y because he made a mistake once 5 years ago”.

Mentor system so there is someone you don’t directly work for that you can talk to (who’s senior enough to give advice/have some clout if there is a problem needs fixing)

Some sort of system for finding out staff views and suggestions. Maybe a suggestion box (!!) or one approachable staff member from each group/level given the task of collecting views from others

Has anyone come across any really effective organisational strategies for tackling and preventing workplace bullying?

The only time I’ve come across workplace bullying, the only solution IMO would have been to fire or severely demote the bullying senior. Didn’t happen. Many juniors left.

For me:

1. Enough staff to do the job
2. Incompetent people should be performance managed early rather than allowed to coast with others picking up the slack.
3. Decent IT
4. Feck off with zillions of well-being initiatives that I don't have time to actually do.
5. Genuine flexibility - if I work my hours and get my work done, let me bugger off early on a Friday or whatever (my work do do this generally).
6. Recognition that people can go above and beyond but not indefinitely, and if they ask for help you need to support them not just wait until they're having a breakdown.

Thank you for all of the thoughts. There is so much here to think about - it's really helpful, but I need to give some thought as to how I put all of this stuff into practice.

Heading out for a walk shortly, but just wanted to thank everyone who has contributed their ideas.

Regular, structured 1-1s between staff and managers to discuss company stuff, work progress, development and welfare.

Comfy rest areas.

Plenty of tea, coffee, milk, sugar.

A culture of working hard during working time and leaving it there.

This is my professional area and I'm up on all the fancy stuff. I think these basics done well would make a real difference though.

That’s another really good point raised earlier. A lot of our front line staff on NMW have been in their customer facing roles throughout while our highly paid senior teams have worked from the safety of their home offices. There is a lot of completely understandable resentment.

I would just like a chair that isn't broken and an upgrade of my computer which has a floppy disk drive.....sigh...

Check out Brene Brown's dare to lead book and program.

This one has been introduced at my work and has been surprisingly effective and beneficial:

1-2pm NO MEETINGS.

No phone calls, no meetings, avoid sending emails, do not reply to emails. Leave your desk, or at least pretend to be away from your desk.

It gave me the “permission” I needed to actually step away from work and take a break.

This hour does NOT have to be used to eat lunch - we know that doesn’t work for a lot of people - but top to bottom, there are to be no calls on someone else’s time during this hour.

And visibility of senior members of our organisation. An exec member joining our team call every other week, and a weekly live stream from the CEO with really transparent updates.

And everything @RockPainting said, with bells on.

• paid day off on their birthday (or the first working day after a weekend birthday)
• company pays for qualifications for staffing they can out together a business case /show it links to their role
• smaller "core hours" period for office based staff (10am-2pm) so staff can flex the times before and after
• promote employees blocking out time in their calendars before and after meetings to both prepare and action what the meeting is about
• have a company wide "get shit done" day where internal meetings are banned (eg every thursday)
• if you are all office based, have baked goods and fresh fruit delivered on payday.

@Foofbrush

I'm trying to articulate this, and probably won't do so very well...

My organisation has frequent initiatives about well-being, mental health etc, but at the same time, there aren't enough staff to cover the annual leave that we are now starting to be able to take, when we haven't been able to during the pandemic. Also, my pay isn't great, my family live far away, I'm avoiding meeting friends to protect them, due to the environment I work in.

The endless messages about this helpline, that webcast, let's all get talking, says to me, "If your mental health is poor, you'd better hurry up and fix it, we've provided all these resources so you've got no excuse".

I know I'm damning the company for taking action, but I end up feeling guilty for not having the mental resources to work on my long-term mental health, I'm just getting through day to day right now. I wish they would just acknowledge that getting involved with any programme or initiative might simply be too much right now.

This is exactly what I was thinking. Fellow NHS worker by any chance?

We have lots of wanky well being initiatives that are born out of managers desire to 'sort the problem' rather than addressing the real elephant in the room which is increasing patient numbers with decreasing staff and a highly weighted management structure meaning there is no money for junior staff, cover and allowing people time to do CPD, take annual leave etc.

The firm message is always 'this is no money...now sort your mental health out please'

Regular pay increases - probably outside your control
Fill vacant posts quickly (but without cutting corners - make sure you appoint people who are competent and pleasant)
Decent IT support
Don't buy the cheapest possible supplies of, eg stationery, it is rarely actual value for money
Look at streamlining unnecessary procedures, but no change just for the sake of change
Less micro managing by the over promoted
Meetings that are actually conversations and not lectures
Clean toilets with paper etc replenished sufficiently often