Creating the time to be well

Creating the time to be well

In Jan 2021, I wrote a blog titled Every leader is a wellbeing leader talking about the importance of all leaders having a focus on wellbeing; their own and their people’s.

I think we would all agree that throughout 2021 this has been the case. We have increasingly found, as we have navigated returns to the office, hybrid working, home schooling, travel uncertainty that many of us have been struggling to find ‘time to be well’.

We’ve seen levels of sickness rise due to stress, anxiety and burnout.

17% of adults in Great Britain experienced some form of depression in summer 2021 (21 July to 15 August); this is a decrease since early 2021 (21% during 27 January to 7 March) but is still above levels before the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic (10%). ONS - Coronavirus and depression in adults, Great Britain: July to August 2021

And when we move into the workplace, more than half (51%) of employees experienced an increase in concerns about their mental health due to the pandemic, according to new findings from Close Brothers.?

Wellbeing is our golden thread

If 2020 was the year when we talked about how our mental health was suffering and became more in need of support, and 2021 was the year during which many organisations spent more on their wellbeing policies, strategies, training, and support than ever before but with levels still rising, then 2022 has to be the year of the overhaul.

With headlines like ‘Burnout could lead to NHS staff sickness rates tripling in 2022’ | The Independent: we cannot continue to apply sticking plasters to mental health in the workplace. We need a radical rethink.

2022 needs to be the year we make the shift to put wellbeing at our core. Wellbeing must be the golden thread that binds together how we operate.

When we are well: -

·??????We are happy And we are 12% more productive when we are happy as this recent study by Warwick University shows.

·??????We are able to engage and be more engaging as this old, but still hugely relevant, article by the Harvard Business Review describes and in the same article the links to engagement and productivity are also clearly cited.

·??????We are innovative If we define successful innovation as ‘something new or different that adds value to our business’ the importance of innovation continues to rise as we face a future of uncertainty and ambiguity:

o??When we are stressed, we retreat into habitual, known, safe responses which doesn’t help us to innovate and,

o??To be innovative we need our prefrontal cortex to develop new and previously unrelated patterns. Our prefrontal cortex is hugely sensitive to sleep deprivation and lack of social connection, hence high anxiety, low innovation.

Finding the time to be well

I believe there are a number of critical steps for us to take that will change the way we understand the importance of wellbeing:

1.??????Change the question It’s not what can we do to support our people when they are ill, it’s how can we make sure that they are well? I am a passionate believer of work as an experience that makes you feel better at the end of the day rather than the same or worse.

2.??????Change the orientation: It’s not about wellbeing as a policy, it’s about wellbeing as our culture Caring about our people fosters belonging, loyalty and high performance. It’s a whole different view on why we work and how we work.

3.??????Change the thinking: We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them (Albert Einstein). I am co-chair of a campaign called Teach Mental Health Science. We are looking to mandate mental health as part of the secondary school core science curriculum. This campaign will change society’s view on mental health for future generations of our workforce.

It’s not that we need new skills to do any of this, it’s about how we set ourselves up to take a different approach. And to think differently we have to create the time. What can be more important that creating the time to be well?

For more on what’s making this so hard, look out for my February blog post.?