Making Workplace Well-being Really Work

Diane Rosen Headshot
Photo Courtesy of Diane Rosen
Boosting wellness for your entire organization can have a powerful ripple effect, from productivity to the bottom line.

Wellness, in and out of the office, has been a hot topic. But the familiar wellness programs that may come to mind—meditation and fitness challenges—miss the mark of what the term really means.  

“While both happiness and wellness are desirable states, subjective well-being is a more holistic way to think about how we can flourish and thrive and work through complicated, difficult, unpleasant and stressful situations,” says Diane Rosen, president of dr-squared Consultants.

According to Rosen, if HR leaders want to maximize employee performance, engagement and productivity, they must also be greatly attuned to a holistic employee well-being and have wellness as a core tenant of the organization. Here’s how.

What does well-being at work actually mean?

Well-being, in general and in the workplace, is a function of an individual’s perception of his or her life. Well-being, thriving and flourishing are highly personal and subjective experiences for which there is no single optimal mix of ingredients and that have different meanings and measurements across domains.

There are several models of well-being focusing on elements such as connectedness/relationships, engagement, meaning/purpose, self-determination, hopefulness, self-efficacy, positive emotions and vitality. I like to think of subjective well-being as an overall net positive experience.

To the extent that a person’s opportunity to increase the frequency and magnitude of positive experiences is optimized, an overall sense of well-being is advanced, amplified and extended and provides fortification in the face of issues, challenges, disappointments or crises.

Well-being is often conflated with happiness and wellness. Happiness is a positive emotion and as such is fleeting. From our own personal experience, it is virtually impossible to sustain a constant state of happiness. Wellness typically refers to physical or mental health.

While both happiness and wellness are desirable states, subjective well-being is a more holistic way to think about how we can flourish and thrive and work through complicated, difficult, unpleasant and stressful situations, all of which we encounter in our work lives.

Why should organizations care about initiatives aimed at well-being?

Research over the past two decades shows that in the workplace context, subjective well-being generates a sense of work and career fulfillment. It is reflected in a feeling of thriving; engagement; a sense of enthusiasm, connection and significance; experiencing self-efficacy and accomplishment; having energy and resilience and persistence in the face of obstacles; and having strong involvement in the job.

Well-being is enhanced by working in organizations that have a collegial and collaborative culture; where employees feel that they are treated fairly, recognized and acknowledged, and have opportunity for personal and professional growth and development and a clear career path; where their work promotes a sense of meaning and value; and when appropriate, the firm can accommodate flexible work. Additionally, those with high levels of well-being may be more likely to be engaged, capable of self-reflection and of building relationships.

Another element of well-being is a sense of mattering. Recent research notes that a key element of well-being is a sense of mattering—which they define as adding value and being valued. Essentially, employees need to feel that the work they do matters to the organization, stakeholders and themselves and that they are valued by the organization, stakeholders and themselves.

How can HR leaders craft well-being initiatives that are meaningful and viable?

Well-being initiatives should focus on organizational culture and practices that align with the business of the organization—yet still facilitate motivation, personal growth, identifying and using employees’ strengths, building up lesser strengths, forging relationships, finding support from others, taking advantage of opportunities for employee autonomy and creating space for employees to attend to life outside of work.

A mistake many organizations make is not to look at well-being, but rather to focus on wellness programs such as fitness challenges, gym membership, yoga, meditation and healthy eating. Wellness programs can be wonderful and a boon to morale in improving the physical and mental health of employees. However, a meaningful well-being initiative looks to promote organizational, team and individual performance.

Initiatives can take many forms but at the core, they should incorporate workshops, training, programs and/or processes around communication and conflict resolution skills, delivering and receiving feedback, mentorship, relationship building and investing in substantive training as appropriate to both reinforce existing skills and add or cultivate new skills. Initiatives should include everyone, including senior management, instead of being top-down edicts. And key to their success, they should not be superficial or one and done.

For example, to promote workplace engagement, performance management should include real-time feedback as opposed to a single review at the end of the year. Managers should be taught how to deliver meaningful feedback and employees should be trained in receiving feedback and asking for what they need in the way of support to do their jobs.

Employee appreciation and recognition programs can be included—provided that they are meaningful and not just a gift card to a local restaurant or shop. Also, employee appreciation should not be the equivalent of a participation prize that rotates among employees so that everyone gets a gold star over the relevant time horizon.

What metrics—qualitative and quantitative—can measure the impact of initiatives?

Some quantitative metrics would look at attrition, retention and absenteeism rates. Satisfaction surveys should be done regularly that include open-ended questions—and not just scale ratings, and confidentiality should be guaranteed.

Qualitative metrics involve substantial exit interviews to really understand why someone left and include questions of what went well during the person’s tenure with the company. The person conducting the interview should be trained to ask probing questions that encourage candor.

There also needs to be regular check-ins where employees can provide real-time feedback as to what is going well and what is not. However, for that to work, the information provided by employees needs to be acted on, not just land in an abyss where nothing ever changes.

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