What’s it going to take to move the needle on wellbeing?

By Kay Needle, Early Intervention & Rehabilitation Expert at Generali UK Employee Benefits

The world of workplace wellbeing is full of solutions, statistics, ROI justification, white papers and even calls to action. Yet wellbeing doesn’t seem to be getting better. Work related stress, depression or anxiety still account for the vast majority of working days lost due to work related ill health. Nine out of 10 UK employees are either not engaged or actively disengaged (lagging behind the European average of 13% engaged employees) and the pre-pandemic trend of sluggish productivity growth has continued.

When do we stop adding to an ever-growing mix and draw the line, saying: Let’s start afresh and redesign work and the workplace from the ground up.

 Right now, there’s renewed focus by government on tackling health based economic inactivity, in terms of the recently announced Keep Britain Working review. But there arguably seems little focus on how people with health conditions sustain employment.

It’s here we focused for the purposes of our latest #Wellbeing360 podcast, along with our guest Dr Julie Denning, Managing Director & Chartered Health Psychologist at Working To Wellbeing and Chair of the Vocational Rehabilitation Association.*

Kay: The World Wellbeing Movement recently partnered with the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford, to establish the four key measures of workplace wellbeing; job satisfaction, happiness, stress, purpose. To my mind, work itself – an individual’s job – is not necessarily the problem; assuming it ticks those four measures.

The actual workplace – the environment, values and leadership practices – that’s the aspect that really needs focus. What needs to change here to make work supportive and sustainable for people with long-term health conditions?

Julie: Yes, people usually switch companies to do the same job elsewhere. It’s often the environment they’re looking to change; maybe they can’t align with the values of the organisation, or they can’t bear the commute.

It makes you think about the role of reasonable adjustments. In Vocational Rehabilitation, we talk about Blue flags and Black flags. The Blue flags are things you can change in an organisation, things that are malleable and moveable, such as adjusting your role temporarily.

 Then you’ve got Black flags, which relate to how the organisation actually operates; its policies, procedures, values, cultural framework. This is all stuff that can’t change without a lot of reflection and willingness by the organisation; and often necessitating a large-scale change / transformation programme.

Kay: And rather than addressing organisational level changes – things like flexibility, management practices, performance reviews – we’re addressing the negative effects of all those things on individuals. Individual-level interventions can be very effective, but this effectiveness is limited when the organisational level isn’t considered.

 I feel that the model of the workplace is so ingrained and embedded that organisations need to know there’s payback for wholesale change. We’re seeing this where four day working weeks are concerned. The outcomes – from the business perspective – are very mixed. And it’s just not realistic for all industries. But where it is happening, there are lots of positive individual outcomes, in terms of improved sleep, reduced stress etc.

On that note, the Employment Rights Bill is expected to introduce various reforms in terms of workplace rights, wages and employer responsibilities. Some things have already changed. Such as the right to request flexible working from day one of employment, which was introduced in April 2024.

Also, guidelines like the ISO45003 have been in place for a few years now – this is a health and safety standard for psychosocial wellbeing.

Do you feel these things will bring about the wholesale change we’re talking about here? Or are they more about setting the bar at the bottom?

Julie: The thing with the ISO guidelines is that, as an employer, you can choose to follow them or not. They provide a useful global standard, but most UK companies should be following the HSE (Health & Julie Safety Executive) Stress Management Standards.

There’s lots of change going on in terms of the Employment Rights Bill, and now the Keeping Britain Working review, as mentioned earlier. I think we need to see how it settles. 
But you should find that a good employer offers things like flexibility anyway; they’ll consider the health and wellbeing needs of their people. They shouldn’t have to be told by law to be doing that.

Ultimately, there’s a lot more to the kind of organisational change we’re talking about here; the kind of change needed to support and sustain people – whether they have a health condition or not – to stay and thrive in the workplace.

This article takes extracts from a recent podcast published by Generali UK. Listen in full to Episode 15 in our #Wellbeing360 series here.

Disclaimer:
All information contained herein represents the views and opinions of the author as of the date of writing and is provided for general information only. Nothing herein constitutes or is intended to constitute financial or other form of advice and no individual should rely upon the information provided in making a specific investment decision without first seeking independent professional advice.