Wellbeing at work: why it matters and how to improve it

Stephen C: Welcome to Health and Safety Uncut, a British Safety Council podcast with me, Stephen Cooke. Standing in for Dr. Shaun Davis, who usually presents the podcast. Today's guest is Stephen Haynes, director of Wellbeing Consultancy, a British Safety Council. We are gonna discuss wellbeing at work, why it matters, and how we can best improve and support it.

So first. Would you tell us a little about your role, Stephen, and also your background in the area of workplace wellbeing? Of course. Hi. Welcome.

Stephen H: thank you for that, firstly for having me, Stephen. Um, so I've been, and this is the shocking thing, I've been doing this for over 30 years now. You know, I got into a career in the workplace health sector in the health insurance sector back in nine, in the early nineties.

And my career has, has grown progressively throughout that in terms of looking at and working closely with employers to ultimately do what I do. Best and what I love doing, which is helping organizations identify and really understand their key people risks, to help them put in place relevant and effective interventions and solutions to help them address those.

Stephen C: So, Stephen, what do we mean when we talk about workplace wellbeing?

Stephen H: Everything, Stephen. And what I mean by that, in fact, actually, I'll tell you a story. So I remember 10 years ago. One of my, one of my in-house roles with a large global organization was head of wellbeing. Uh, the chief executive sat me down and he had this, he had this habit.

He would meet all of his new key employees. It was lovely. Sat me down and he said, you know, Steve, what wellbeing means to me? I, I, I asked him, what, what does it mean and what does it encompass? And he said, it encompasses everything. Everything that we do in our day to day, everything that we as an organization do, everything we do as individuals is wellbeing.

You know, we have, we are spending often more than the third of our lives, particularly now with, you know, the balance and the mix we have of hybrid working and so forth. You know, we're spending more than a third. And again, likewise, also throwing into. Into the mixed commuting times within that and recognizing the impact of our home and our non-work lives on our work lives and vice versa is absolutely critical.

You know? We can look at what we mean by wellbeing across a whole wide range of things. And I can sit here and throw out lots of wonderful, big, big terms. You know, like organizational development, like culture change, like leadership style, like, um, my favourite: psychosocial risk management or effectively stress risk management in workplaces, but you know, workplace wellbeing.

A whole wide range of domains. You know, whether you're thinking about your physical, your mental, your financial, your social health, et cetera. And ultimately, for us as organizations, if we come back to the fundamental challenge we've got with workplace wellbeing is there is still no real clear agreed definition of what wellbeing means to different organizations.

But if we just think about it in the context of this is about. US thriving. This is about mental fitness. This is about optimal wellbeing for optimal individual growth and success through to ultimately organizational success.

Stephen C: So why is wellbeing important to British Safety Council and, and the work you do in health and safety, Stephen?

Stephen H: Well, I mean, the link between health, safety and wellbeing is in is, is absolutely crystal clear. We can't have one without the other. In fact, you know, if we start to think about, you know, the importance of wellbeing, ultimately organizations are the collective of a group of individuals, and it is those individuals.

We are ultimately human beings. If we are not performing optimally, if we are not thinking optimally, we are not going to be performing optimally. That's gonna have an impact on our bottom line. Sometimes we tend to think of wellbeing. Almost as something else to do in an organization rather than actually wellbeing is what we live and breathe.

It's just part and infused into our everyday lives within the workplace. So workplace wellbeing is absolutely critical to organizations for a variety of different reasons. Well, the link between health and safety and wellbeing is. It's very, very clear, very direct. I mean, if you look at, I mean, just taking an example recently of, you know, press a large, a large global organization had or negative press it had in terms of safety incidents.

Mm-hmm. You know, if you then look at what's underlining all of the safety incidents that come back to things such as psychological safety. Mm-hmm. So were people feeling comfortable, they could reach out and actually say, hang on, we've got a fault here. Mm. To autonomy was another key, another key area that came out.

Did people feel that they had the control and leadership style was the other factor which came out. And again, so these three key elements of workplace wellbeing, which had a direct impact on the safety record for that organization. So, you know mm-hmm. We can't ignore, I mean even if you think, you know, back to, uh, basic level, imagine I'm a forklift truck driver and, and I'm struggling with, you know, my own personal mental health.

I might have family challenges or whatever that might be, or financial worries, and it's gonna have an impact on how well I'm concentrating, how well I'm focusing at work and could lead to an accident. Yeah. So, yes, there is a direct link between health and safety and wellbeing.

Stephen C: And can we see a direct link?

I mean, is there kind of some line you can draw quite clearly then between, well, someone's wellbeing and literally the safety in the workplace and, and, and, and all that goes with that? 

Stephen H: Absolutely. Yeah. Demonstrable, definitely. I love the, uh, the iceberg analogy. It's a really easy way of kind of describing it because.

There are things that we know if I'm an HR director for a company, there are things that I know I've got a really good sense of around some of my key people challenges, and I can see them on the top of the surface. But there's lots of things we don't necessarily know, and there's lots of things we don't necessarily know beneath the surface and to what extent they're having what impact on, A, bottom line, and B, of course, our people.

So I like to think of our work as a bit like, you know, put your hand into the, into the C and we're taking the iceberg. Taking the iceberg out and we are showing it and we we're able to pull all that together. So it's a bit like a jigsaw that we create. So big part of what we do first off, is really looking under the hood and helping organizations pull together all the different pieces of the puzzle to help them have a really clear understanding of this is what, this is why, and then this is how.

Stephen C: So what are some of the sort of real world you might wanna say, implications then of, of issues around wellbeing? 

Stephen H: Pretty big is the short answer. I mean, we've got, what, somewhere in the region of 24 million working days lost through absence and wellbeing related, you know, that's over 28 million, uh, costs to the UK economy in 22 and 23.

You know, we know about 20% of the UK workforce are in some form of emotional stress right now, or they're struggling and, and of course. Yes, we've got the direct impact in terms of the overall cost impact, but then also what are we also then factoring in the impact on our wellbeing on things like creativity.

Mm-hmm. In workplaces, the impact on our ability to innovate and even at its basic level, things like missed opportunities. Things like actually we didn't win that contract. That contract went over to our competitor because, you know, our team weren't optimally thrive, they weren't thriving. You know, we knew there was some issues going on with X, Y, and Z and we weren't able to to, to fully address them.

But actually, how well do we know that? So there are. There are the things that we look, we, we know that we are looking at, and there are lots of things we're not necessarily directly relating to wellbeing, but creativity, innovation, missed opportunity, I would say, should be up there at the top. These are the big things which are really driving or why wellbeing should be a priority for organizations.

Stephen C: So essentially all organizations, just however big or small can, can do this and think about it in terms of their culture, I guess, in terms of how that impacts on people's wellbeing in their workplace. 

Stephen H: Definitely. Yeah. I mean if you think about culture change programs, they're all about aligning people behaviours with organizational values and goals and culture chain change programs are are one of the most common things within that in terms of helping to understand the culture is.

Consulting with employees is talking with employees. One of the key outputs, in fact, one of the common outputs we see from any type of assessment that we do with companies is the visibility. But that also links also to psychological safety in workplaces. So we hear a lot more about psychological safety today than we've probably ever done previously.

Mm-hmm. But it's, it's such a power, a key part of, A, culture, but of course B, uh, what we do around workplace wellbeing, you know, if we haven't got an environment where, you know, people can say, do you know I made a mistake? That didn't work for me. I have, you know, got stuff going on at home or I've got, and you know, that, that's impacting my work.

Or, you know, I don't fully understand the task at hand. Stephen, can you help me? If we don't have that culture and environment where we do feel we can have those conversations without it having an impact on, actually, is this gonna impact whether I get promotion? This is gonna impact my, my, my, my, my pay rise, et cetera.

Yeah. But if I don't feel I can do that, then we're gonna be inhibiting, um, uh, we're gonna be inhibiting the culture. Mm. We're gonna be inhibiting collaboration, and we're gonna be inhibiting innovation and creativity.

Stephen C: British Safety Council published a report last year called Being Well in a Changing World. Can you tell us what that showed and what you are calling for as a result?

Stephen H: There was a number of things the research showed us. Key ones are around the challenges in definition, which then leads to challenges around how we are measuring wellbeing. And it also looked at, um, diverse perspectives. You know, wellbeing priorities differ among different demographics, and again, the highlights are much more need for a much more, uh, targeted and inclusive approach.

The impact of change, of course, was a big area. Mm, you know, rapid technological and environmental, uh, changes and social changes. You know, they're gonna define where we are going over the next century. And again, that leads to additional uncertainty within the workplace for employers and employees. And then of course, policy and practice gaps.

Again, we've got lots of research, but do we have all the right research in all the right areas?

Stephen C: And what were some of the recommendations then on the back of those findings, Stephen? 

Stephen H: So one of the key ones is, is, is the definition. Mm-hmm. I think it's, it is finding a common ground to what we mean by workplace wellbeing.

And again, that we see that day in, day out with our clients than we work with. Mm-hmm. Different organizations come at wellbeing in a slightly different way. You know, if we think about, you know, if we were to break workplace wellbeing into sort of three. The simple categories are primary, secondary, and tertiary approaches.

Tertiary approach is all about you put the stuff in at point of need when things go wrong to secondary approaches, which are all about upskilling to the primary focus, which really is 80% of the game when it comes to workplace wellbeing, which is all about the good working conditions. And that's ultimately the things that, end of the day, you know, when you and I go home at the end of the day, do we go home and say, gee, I love working for my company because, oh wow, we've got such great benefits. Or, I love the help plan service that we've got. If I'm ever struggling, no, we're gonna go home at the end of every day and we're gonna say, do you know I love working for my company because they're great people.

I love my boss. I, I've got autonomy, I've got real control over quality. I can feel really collaborative, collaborative on my teams and really creative. You know, that's the stuff that is, is rea what we're really talking about with workplace wellbeing.

Stephen C: We hear a lot currently, don't we, that businesses might reduce or, or even remove initiatives to promote greater diversity and inclusion in the workplace.

Do you, do you think, or do you fear the same might start happening with workplace wellbeing?

Stephen H: I, well, fear, fear I says a strong word. I wouldn't, I wouldn't say, I think firstly, we've gotta get the dialogue right. I think we, if we look at D and I, uh, you know, we've come a long way in the last 15 years, especially since the establishment of the Equality Act in 2010, you know, which is helping ensure the employer, or employees and people and you are treated fairly. Mm-hmm. And discriminated both, whether that's directly or indirectly in the workplace. You know, again, that's all based on various characteristics, whether it's age, gender, disability, uh, race or religion. And 15 years ago you'd say it was all about embedding the act into workplace is protecting people from discrimination in employment.

Today, or I should say to where we've got to today, you know, where we've striven for even greater diversity and inclusive workplaces again. We know diverse workforces are great in driving creativity, innovation, collaboration, and improved problem solving in workplaces. Mm-hmm. Because, you know, the covering, we are capturing the views and perspectives of a much wider range of, uh, individuals.

And of course, inclusive workplaces, you know, positively impact things like morale, don't they? You know, the great impact on engagement retention. Because we are increasing the value and respect that we have to people within the workplace. So

Stephen C: what can organizations do better then? And I, I Is this sort of simply a case of sort of doing more, doing more interventions, more initiatives, things like that.

Stephen H: I think it's, more about doing the right thing. But knowing what the right thing is, and it is the data piece. Mm-hmm. It's know what to look at in order to drive the right informed approach. But equally, one of the challenges I think we could have with workplace wellbeing is if we over number it, over numbers it.

If there's such a term as that, if we overfocus on, right? Well, we've gotta have X number of whether there, whether that is we, we've gotta have x number of mental health first aiders, right? Because our mandate says that's what we wanna achieve. And I'm picking on that as a, as just one of, you know, a hundred different examples.

But again, it's kind, is that right for us? Mm-hmm. Why are we doing that in the first place? Um, fundamentally it all comes back to what is informing the approach that we take. To wellbeing in our organization. And fundamentally, I would say that's the one thing we all need to get better at.

Stephen C: Hmm. And have you seen any examples or anything you think organiz the way that an organization has gone about.

That and identifying that, if you like, for themselves, and you thought, wow, that's just brilliant. That's just amazing. I just wish I could replicate that across other organizations, you know? Yeah. There, there's, there's lots of

Stephen H: really great examples out there where organizations have really sort of dug into the detail.

They've consulted with employees and. Importantly brought everybody on board with the journey rather than going in off into a silo and said, right, let's, let's go and build our workplace program. You know, they've done it collaboratively with work with employees, looked at the wider picture and looked at multiple pieces of that data puzzle, so to speak, to really help understand.

Not only what do we need to be addressing mm-hmm. But how and importantly, how are we going to make that land? So there's some great examples with, you know, let's take established frameworks around managing, uh, stress at work. Hmm. Whether it's the IO 45,003, whether it's the agency managers down as brilliant both of them.

The challenge is, is if you try to take an established framework and just apply it in a cut and paste manner. Mm-hmm. It won't land. It's very, it's very unlikely to, to work effectively. We suddenly go into an organization that's never really done anything about managing stress wrong. So we just suddenly say, right, all of our people managers must now do a stress risk assessment on X, and we're gonna do this, and we're gonna do that.

It then becomes almost a, we are doing this to you. Mm-hmm. Rather than, actually, the reason we're doing this is because we wanna create an environment where our people can thrive even more. Mm. Rather than Right. The boss says, this is the way things go. We've gotta do it this way. And of course that's when things, that's where one of the challenges that we've had, I think to some extent around workplace wellbeing and the effectiveness of different tools.

Back to that whole point at the beginning of sense thing. Mm-hmm. Where you, we, we are never. Measuring apples and apples or comparing apples with apples, we're actually comparing completely different fruits on completely different planets because it's such a vast, diverse range of factors. Yeah. Which influence what we're measuring, what we're doing, and how effective it actually is in organizations.

Stephen C: And finally, Stephen, as Shaun likes to ask in every episode, um, I'm gonna ask you, can you give us just one key practical takeaway that our listeners can come away from this podcast with

Stephen H: Yeah. I think you know what immediately springs to mind is clients sometimes still say, we haven't got budget for wellbeing, which, which kind of saddens me a little bit because, you know, wellbeing doesn't cost anything. You know, you know, collaboration, listening skills, engaging, and, you know, having the right dialogue with employees doesn't cost anything. It's just who we are as human beings. So we're kind of back a little bit to that understanding of what are we actually talking about when we're talking about wellbeing within the workplace.

Um, I think. Two, two things actually. I know you, I know you asked for one thing there, Stephen, but two things. I think at a, at a very high level, we've got this almost aspirational view of, you know, we want to create and adopt standardized metrics is kind of where we want to get to for assessing wellbeing.

We want to, we want to get a level playing field. As we, as we, as we all mature and as we all learn more and more about this ever evolving field and science. Fundamentally, I think the one step. That we, or one big takeaway I would say is take a step back. So as the people function in your organization, if you are in HR, health and safety or leadership team, whoever's owning and responsible at a senior drive level for wellbeing, pause.

Take a step back. Look at the picture that you are looking at. Understand what and why you are doing with regard to wellbeing to really understand how effective is it at addressing your key people risks.

Stephen C: Thank you, Stephen, and and thank you very much for taking part in this podcast. I found it incredibly useful actually, and really, really helpful in terms of clarifying what we mean by wellbeing in the first place, but also how we can best go about improving it. So it's been really useful. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Stephen Haynes, Director of Wellbeing Consultancy at British Safety Council. And if you want to find out more or read the report that Steven mentioned being well in a changing world, or indeed, just find out more about wellbeing generally. You can find the links in this podcast description.

Links will be in the episode description.