Wellbeing at work is undoubtedly important, but often initiatives designed to improve matters feel like an adjunct at best or an afterthought at worst. As I argued in my 8 Steps To Building A Social Business, change is not something that can be a standalone endeavor, but rather something that has to infuse every part of the organization and its behaviors.
It’s an ethos that Deloitte’s Jen Fisher and Anh Phillips run with in Work Better Together, where they describe a framework for ensuring that wellbeing is something that runs throughout the organization.
“As senior leaders help bring wellbeing into work’s design by modeling behavior and investing in wellbeing programs, they should elevate wellbeing to the status of any other factor that affects the company’s performance,” they say. “That means that the program is strategic and that team leaders are expected to treat it as an organizational priority.”
A framework for wellbeing
To do this, they outline five key environments within which changes should be made to help ensure wellbeing is central to the culture of the organization, with various recommendations for integrating wellbeing into each section.
- Cultural – which focuses on ensuring wellbeing is part of norms and behaviors. This can be achieved by modeling wellbeing behaviors, such as taking microbreaks.
- Relational – which focuses on the relationships between and among colleagues. Organizations can work on this by paying close attention to preferences for worker styles and personal needs.
- Operational – which examines the wellbeing aspects of organizational policies, processes, and programs. Fisher and Phillips argue that wellbeing needs to be factored into everything from work scheduling and performance management processes to leadership evaluation and recognition programs in order to be effective.
- Physical – which explores the impact the physical workspace plays in supporting and facilitating wellbeing. For instance, is the design of the work environment such that the physical, mental, and emotional needs of employees are met?
- Virtual – of course, the workplace is increasingly a virtual one, so that of course also warrants a mention, whether it’s the use of new technologies to help onboard new team members or to help navigate stressful situations.
“When an organization is able to successfully design wellbeing into work, wellbeing becomes indistinguishable from work itself and embedded across all organizational levels and environments so that it drives and sustains not only human performance but also human potential,” Fisher and Phillips say.
