I'm not convinced a workplace focus on welbeing is a good thing

[Backhills]

Over the last couple of years, we've really tried to do a lot of work on staff wellbeing. There has been MH training, voluntrary wellbeing events, both social and creative, lots of encouragement to talk, stress surveys and action plans, exercise sessions, group coaching sessions, an employee support package, supported flexible working.

It just seems to have given everyone "permission" to have MH issues and to offload on colleagues. Sickness absence has gone through the roof and it's absolutely draining for the people having their colleagues' issues dumped on them. I tried to find a better word, but that's how it feels. People want to dump all their issues on someone else, both work related and personal.

Is this a common experience or are we getting it horribly wrong?

@Rosegoldfan

Trouble is mental health issues are very common with moderm life and especially after the pandemic. Something needs to change.

I hear this a lot...and I always question it in my head if it is true. is it more common..or is it we talk about it more.

The job is incredibly stressful, dealing with the most challenging and disadvantaged children in the county. Staff do have an enormous emotional load, but workloads are reasonable (much less than they would be in mainstream) and management are genuinely supportive. They always have been. The wellbeing initiative is an acknowledgement that the work itself is hard, not because of any problems exactly. All staff have access to counselling whenever they want it.

The things that come up on stress surveys are things like car parking, never work or relationship related.

When an organisation starts talking about wellbeing and taking it seriously, obviously it's possible somehow this is just making people's health worse, but it seems more likely to me that people no longer think they will be e.g. discriminated against for their mental health problems so ask for the support they always needed but previously didn't get. See also taking time off sick for mental health problems.

I feel like this is a key example of correlation =/= causation.

There's a balancing act between people having to pretend they're fine while their personal life is causing them major problems and people at work feeling like they're being weighed down by others problems. If there's crazy stuff going on in my life then I do expect to explain to work what's going on as it might well impact my output.

I may be biased as I have previously worked in places where mental health problems were an almost guaranteed end to any promotional opportunities and now work somewhere supportive. But I tend to think that organisations employ humans, not robots. If robots were available to do the jobs I'm sure they'd be much more reliable. But they aren't, which is why they aren't used. And that means organisations have to accept the fallibility of the humans they employ - which is likely to be higher than ever after the incredibly unusual last 16-17 months.

Well sickness and stress and mental health issues, have increased in the last year.

Losing a loved one is devastating. Losing them during a pandemic with all the restrictions must be even worse. When my uncle died, we could get together and support eachother. I had a gaping hole. I couldn't understand how the worl was still turning without him. Having to go through that without my family, must be horrendous.

But, my personal opinion is that the 'well being in the work place' doesn't really work. Because usually, it doesn't translate into the real work place. Actually things that could help aren't put in place. It also puts people in a weird position, where if a colleague is having a bad day, they feel they have to spot if its MH issues or a bad day.

They don't want to try and cheer someone along, incase it's more serious. The low level everyday support, reduces, because people don't want to be seen as trying to make light of mental issues and been seen as one of those people that is telling someone who is depressed 'ah come on it will be ok'. But sometimes people aren't depressed and that's what they need.

Well being in the work place is usually a tick box exercise so employers can get 'investors in people' or similar awards. It doesn't really help or actually work to support the colleagues.

One of the places I worked that was the biggest 'we care about you' was just awful. I opened grievance about bullying I recieved from a senior manager' HR and my manager met with me. At the next meeting HR didn't come. My manager came and told me the HR person wasn't available, so he brought someone else. The person, he brought was the best friend of the senior manager the grievance against. The senior manager was this womans children god mothers.

I walked out that day and never returned. It was made clear, they didn't give a shit. And were doing what they could to try and shut me up. How do you talk freely, in a setting that's meant to confidential, when you know someone on the room will tell the person.

So no, I don't think it works. But not for the reasons you think. Its possible that the emphasis on supporting mental health issues makes people, more comfortable about being open about it. And of course, some people will see it as a way to get time off with you not being able to really do much about it. But that group will be fairly small.

My reaction to your title was yanbu, but coming from a slightly different place. I think the focus on wellbeing has given some managers and HR employees the sense that they have a saviour role and are entitled to know what’s going on in their employees’ lives. There was a thread on here last year about the expectation to have cameras on during video calls. I was surprised at the number of managers who insisted they had a right to require this not on the grounds of courtesy, but so as to check on well-being. Not from time to time, but in some cases every day. When people argued about privacy, some said they’d be upset if a member of their team wasn’t open to them about their lives. Now, I agree managers should be supportive and check in on their staff from time to time, but the sense that they were entitled to be privy to their home lives and had a proactive role in seeking out problems is intrusive, disrespectful of boundaries and arrogant. Ask me if I’m ok, support me if I ask for help - but don’t insist on daily calls because you think you’re on a crusade to save people from DV or depression.

I’ve had personal experience of this myself unfortunately. Asked for some support - didn’t get it because what I was describing didn’t fit into any of the categories they been trained on in their well-being sessions - and found HR digging gleefully into my medical history. Never again.

Managers need to be able to acknowledge the employee's situation and signpost them to help. Managers aren't counsellors.

Amateur counsellors can inadvertently do harm.

So managers should not be spending long periods of time having conversations with distressed members of staff. Their job is to listen, acknowledge and support by signposting. Otherwise you'll have a bunch of managers off with stress too.

I’m a teacher and my issue with the well-being stuff at work is that it’s so superficial and the emphasis is on individual actions (eg do a mindfulness meditation) rather than cultural changes that address the causes of poor mental health eg...

• we are now doing double the planning and assessment with kids isolating, but have not been allocated any additional time to do it

• TA and cover supervisor wages are woefully low

• culture of expectation that you will work outside of paid hours for free - difficult to function at work if you choose not to due to point 1

*culture which celebrates overwork and is derogatory towards those who have healthy boundaries round work/life balance.

I think the focus is wrong. I’m a massive hippy and I still think the airy-fairy stuff is useless unless it’s in addition to - not instead of - employers paying people properly and protecting employees’ time to live outside work.

I think this last year and a bit has really shaken all of our Coke bottles. I would regard myself as a calm person who coped well with work pressures. But even I have struggled with things that would not have ordinarily bothered me.
I think well-being initiatives can be a pointless box ticking exercise that’s dumped on top of normal work pressures. If a firm is genuinely on board with helping staff out, it should understand that we’re all much more on edge than we used to be, and make room for this.

@MiddleParking

I think the issue is more that none of that shit actually does anything to improve wellbeing. If your staff are all going off sick with MH issues, there’s something else wrong with your working conditions.

This

I think your focus is on the wrong thing.

The issue as I see it is that organisations with a poor workplace culture and bad working practices rush to start doing a load of ill thought-through wellbeing initiatives without the proper structures in place.

There are too many empty ‘beanbags and bullshit’ initiatives and not enough genuine lasting support. I think it’s unreasonable to expect employees with no formal psychological or counselling training to support colleagues with sometimes complex mental health needs.

Managing the offloading thing is about having better boundaries. It’s possible to be both boundaried and supportive. If certain managers are struggling with this it suggests a need for further training on their part.

I also think this is something organisations just have to work with. Mental health issues are a fact of life and not everyone can set them aside when they come to work. People sometimes need support at work, it’s as simple as that. We wouldn’t dream of talking this way about maternity leave, why is mental health support any different from an organisational perspective?

We have all this well-being stuff too.. it's ironic because a couple of the managers are now trained in mental health first aid but never answer their phone or help you with issues such as when I have been paid incorrectly, when I have been waiting weeks to hear if annual leave will be approved , when I am waiting to hear whether flexible working is being approved ( set days for childcare as the business is 7 days a week so they want to stick you in to work any day changing it up every week , how can I do that with Childcare to book and pay for with 2 year old who's nursery is set days ). So I find it hilarious that we get these regular emails to say don't forget these people are mental health first aid trained so to call if any concerns LOL yes I do have concerns and they are impacting my wellbeing and mental health but it's your crappy attitude to work related things that is causing it so sort that out first !

All our mental health first aiders are off with stress…

So if I can't get through to them to get an answer on actually work place issues that are causing me stress why would I then trust them to call them for mental health first aid ?

I have worked for several large organisations and in the latest one they are utterly obsessed with the concept of Wellbeing but nothing ever actually changes, it's all lip service. The only change I can think of is the introduction of a Staff Wellbeing app - access to external counselling, random articles about mental health etc - and this all used to be available to access anyway they just made it more "accessible" in an app, launched with a massive fanfare. When staff are asked what they really want help or support with in surveys, nothing happens as a result.
Our work can be stressful but it's manageable. It's clear that a colleague is on the verge of a mental breakdown for various personal reasons but it's not being handled well at all, but I think she thinks it's all good and she can just keep taking random days off as it's MH - I am quite sure she is going to be on absence monitoring pretty soon but can't say during one of the massive offloading tirades I have to listen to every other day. I have said to management I am concerned about her mental health and they just say thank you for raising it - clearly nothing actively happens. This is happening widely in other teams across the company too.
And then we'll get another email that week reminding everyone about self care and wellbeing and talk to us, talk to your managers^ - load of nonsense.

Agree with so many of the posts here.

Well-being initiatives are all well and dandy but if your practices are poor in other areas that will have an detrimental effect on sickness.

You mentioned car parking but seemed to dismiss it as not being of importance - and yet it’s incredibly important. For example, was a thread on MN recently where someone was considering not taking a job because the parking was dire (she had to drive) and the majority of posters agreed that the stress faced every day from worrying about how they would park was significant with people having to leave at stupid o’clock in the morning to get a space or worrying if their car was safe.

@shimney rightly talks about real issues that she faces that cause her stress - the kind that managers and organisations tend to turn a blind eye to when it suits them. These are the things that you perhaps should be looking at.

@Backhills

The job is incredibly stressful, dealing with the most challenging and disadvantaged children in the county. Staff do have an enormous emotional load, but workloads are reasonable (much less than they would be in mainstream) and management are genuinely supportive. They always have been. The wellbeing initiative is an acknowledgement that the work itself is hard, not because of any problems exactly. All staff have access to counselling whenever they want it.

The things that come up on stress surveys are things like car parking, never work or relationship related.

It may seem trivial but car parking is an issue that can affect staff well being. It is work related.

I'm going to assume there isn't enough parking? Well that means a stressful start to the day...either getting there really early to nab your space or getting there at a reasonable time scrambling around for a space, thinking about all the work you could be getting on with rather than looking for a space.

I think it's reasonable to include other issues in schools like lack of equipment like pens and glue, computers slow to start and photocopiers constantly jamming in these sorts of surveys. Surely the survey is there to highlight how to make staff lives easier?

Cross posts with Sweak there!

YANBU

and I completely agree with the poster who said that managers have begun to believe they have a right to information gather about their staff. They don’t.

Slow down the endless well-being initiatives and instead make resources available for counselling.

Ah yes @MaMelon

You mentioned car parking but seemed to dismiss it as not being of importance - and yet it’s incredibly important. For example, was a thread on MN recently where someone was considering not taking a job because the parking was dire (she had to drive) and the majority of posters agreed that the stress faced every day from worrying about how they would park was significant with people having to leave at stupid o’clock in the morning to get a space or worrying if their car was safe.

@MaMelon this is really true. I almost left a job because I was promised an online parking space. Then told it was a waiting list. For months, trying to find somewhere to park, off site, where I could safely leave my car, not piss off local residents and be in a walkable distance was impossible. I was having to set off hours early. I didn't start until 11.30am but was in the office at 9am so I could get parked. When I decided I had enough and was leaving, a parking space for me, magically appeared.

Its really not, a non issue. Its a big issue.

I’ll add my bit on car parking. It’s a huge stress when many workplaces simply don’t have enough parking spaces and you have no other way to get to work. In my last two jobs I’ve arrived at least an hour early so as to be able to park. Luckily this worked for me as I had no other morning responsibilities such as the school run.
Other things that affect one’s mental health at work are those things that stop one doing one’s job properly, including:

• Slow and poorly designed IT systems
• Multiple computer applications for different tasks that are not compatible with each other
• Poorly designed paperwork that doesn’t correspond with the computer systems
• Poor communication, particularly lack of timeliness and consistency in communicating management decisions

Unless organisations can commit to identifying and rectifying the problems that prevent people doing their jobs properly, they should leave off the well-being initiatives, as these only serve to give employees the impression that if they can’t control their well-being, it’s their own fault, which is hardly useful.

Also, people don’t always know what is really upsetting them, even when they think they do. The subconscious isn’t always clear in its messaging to the conscious mind.

They might say it’s car parking, and that might be a genuine problem. But maybe the real problem is a punitive culture around lateness and the car parking is a focus point for that.

The things that come up on stress surveys are things like car parking, never work or relationship related.

And this is the typical result of well being in the work place.

Staff are telling you car parking is an issue. It's an issue for them, they are telling you this causes them stress. But it doesn't seem like the well being team think it's a big issue. Not all things that cause stress are life changing big events. Having a stressful start to the day just to get to work, every morning can build up. People, if feeling low, can't face it doing it today and call in sick.

Dealing with the same problem again and again and again, day after day does impact people and how they start their day

Mental health first aiders are the perfect example of a company offering lip service to wellness. A couple of members of staff go on a course for a few hours and present themselves to the workforce as “mental health champions” with their online toolkits. Utter bollox.

I took two months off after my mum died and ultimately decided I had to resign rather than go back to a deeply unpleasant working environment. There is definitely something amiss with your workplace if people can't face being there when they're struggling with MH.