5 Steps to Improving Wellbeing in the Workplace

During Advertising Week Europe I had the pleasure of appearing on the NABS ‘Say Hello To Your Brain’ panel, alongside Pippa Glucklich, Vice President of WACL, Soraya Shaw, Strategic Consultant and NABS, Afua Basoah, VP of Rabin Martin, and co-founder and CEO of CDP Leadership Consultants, Derek Draper.

The team at NABS kicked things off with research showing that 60% of the advertising and media industry felt that work had a negative impact of their wellbeing in the past 12 months, and that 64% have considered leaving the industry because of the negative impact it was having on their health. Let that sink in. That means two thirds of our industry, of the people you know and work with, are unhappy at work. The research is startling for a number of reasons, but is made especially pertinent when you consider the industry has a 30% annual staff turnover rate and a growing skills shortage - especially in ad tech. How can we justify the burnout that comes from these levels of stress and unhappiness?

Luckily, NABS brought together the Adland Avengers of workplace wellbeing for their panel - all of whom were bursting with big ideas (neuroplasticity vied with neurodiversity for word of the day!) and everyday hacks to ensure our people are happy and fulfilled in their roles.

This is an important conversation, one that deserves to be continued beyond AdWeek, and one that goes well beyond AdLand, so I thought I’d share five simple steps for any business that’s serious about improving workplace wellbeing.

1. Build a purposeful culture

As Jim Stengel pointed out in his book Grow: How Ideals Power Growth and Profit at the World's Greatest Companies, companies with purpose are 400% more profitable than standard companies. But you need a purpose that is bigger than a bottom line, one that allows your people to be their bravest selves, do work that challenges the status quo and delivers meaningful impact.

Culture is your number one competitive advantage in an industry that changes as much as ours, but good culture is about people, practices and behaviours, it’s not about perks. Almost all companies past a certain size have statements of mission, purpose, and values. Very few live by them. For values to be real you have to hire and fire by them, promote and demote by them, start and stop projects based on them. Work to establish a written and understood culture: a set of values, principles and purpose that guides your team and its people, providing a blueprint for how to work together and do business. And most important of all, use job descriptions, daily stand ups, weekly meetings and quarterly objective-setting to make sure every person in the business knows what their individual mission is and how it ladders up to the company mission.

2. Create spaces where people can thrive

The best, most diverse businesses are places where people can come in every day and be themselves, not need to conform to stereotypes, and concentrate on doing meaningful work in an atmosphere free from judgement. Unruly doesn’t have a dress code. We hire smart people to build our tech, analyse the data and deliver insights that will transform advertising for the better - and we certainly trust them to get dressed by themselves in the morning. We want people to feel comfortable, to feel safe, and to feel free to be themselves because we see better results when people are confident and relaxed.

Healthy body, healthy mind as the saying goes, and we have standing desks as well as snooze pods, bottomless nuts (?!) as well as chocolate biscuits, and employee health insurance that rewards us for walking. We’ve also made a concerted effort to create spaces within our offices that enable different kinds of people to think and work. We’re compulsive communicators, but we recognise that half the population are introverts, and need areas that facilitate quiet musings, deep thought and yes, a light snooze!

3. Flex your flexibility muscles

Data in the brilliant She’s Back book shows that 84% of women who’ve taken a break say they want to return but 75% of women think their work is too inflexible for them to return. Add to that the fact that 34% of millennials have quit a job because it wasn't flexible (FlexJob survey 2017), and the need for a more flexible approach to work is clearly an issue that needs urgently addressing and one that has the potential to improve workplace wellbeing, job satisfaction AND employee productivity.

At Unruly, our flexibility offering is called “UNcover Flexibility” and is designed to offer Unrulies the freedom they need to take care of family members, pursue passion projects and take time for themselves. The options we chose range from simple ad-hoc flexi-time, where it's fine to arrive and leave late or early if needed, through to combining work with traveling abroad, sabbaticals, part-time work options and early finishes (aka "fireside Fridays") in summer and winter. We're also piloting core hours across individual offices and teams to see what positive impact that can have as well. But there are even more options out there! Campaign & IPA’s Survey revealed 11 key flexible working practices that are worth investigating, including: part-time working, home-working, flexi time, staggered hours, compressed hours, job sharing, shift working, term time hours, annualised hours, self-rostering, v-time working. As with all of these tips, the more you can lead by example the more successful a policy will be. With role models, you’ve got to see it to be it. With workplace policies, you’ve got to see it to believe it!

4. Empathise - and smile!

A key part of developing a culture that encourages wellbeing and allows people to stay happy and healthy is empathy, especially in leadership. From employees to customers, suppliers, investors and observers, a business runs on the quality of its human interactions and the goodwill you build and sustain with your full range of stakeholders. You have to earn the respect of your people; and that means you should be listening and learning from them as much as you are talking and giving instructions. Listening is the operative word here!

A good rule of thumb is to have regular one-to-ones with your team members – at least once a fortnight, ideally more often than that - to ensure they have clarity on their goals, to see how you can help, and to find out if there's anything you should stop doing that’s inadvertently unhelpful. One of my empathy hacks is to begin a meeting with a personal question: it reminds me that the employee/client/supplier I’m talking to is also a frazzled mum/sleep-deprived dad/aspiring foodie/nervous flyer/stressed-out fiance! I’m constantly surprised by the power of a smile, and it’s astonishing how powerful a positive atmosphere can be at work. The happier, safer, and more understood people feel, the more likely they are to do their best work.

5. Understand the NABS SHEPARD model

It's can be difficult to know where to start with workplac well being, but NABS evidence-based SHEPARD model, which encompasses the latest research and neuroscience to identify seven characteristics of wellbeing, is an excellent framework to get you started. The model is designed to help people better understand their own wellbeing and is guiding the development of NABS’ services.

It says, fundamentally, that people thrive when they have, or feel, the following:

Satisfaction - Having a feeling of contentment, assessing their lives as being filled with opportunity, potential, meaning and purpose;

Health - Believing themselves to be, and are in a state of wellness; in mind, body and spirit;

Emotions - Having the ability to regulate their emotions and feelings in a constructive and meaningful way;

Perceptions - Having positive perceptions in relation to themselves and their environment;

Awareness - Being aware of and make positive connections between their thoughts, experiences, responsibilities and impact of their relationships;

Rewards - Feeling financially secure and empowered, with a perceived sense of status and purpose;

Diversity - Having varied, positive relationships which create a sense of learning, belonging, community, social acceptance and trust.

You can read more about the SHEPARD model, download resources and assets to understand your own workplace wellbeing, and find out about NABS upcoming events right here. And please join me in saying a massive thank you to Diana, Charlie, and the whole of #TeamNABS for the work they do supporting our people across AdLand. If ever there were unsung heroes, here they are!