How culture can impact employee wellbeing. Are you a fish out of water?

The old fish says to the young fish “how’s the water?” The young fish looks confused, and says, “what’s water?” Here, the young fish is an employee who has no real awareness of their workplace environment and the old fish is trying to get feedback – in vain, because there is no sense of context.

Water is a metaphor for workplace culture. Dirty water results in unhealthy fish, just as a bad culture leads to unhealthy employees. I’ve heard culture referred to as the “smell of the place” or the “vibe” which impacts the employee experience, but to be properly prepared to deal with culture and its impact on employee wellbeing in particular, context matters.

Focusing on behaviours without considering context leads to misaligned interventions. Let’s talk about some of the individual behaviours you might focus on in your health and wellbeing programs such as stopping smoking, eating better, exercising more. These are the consequences of the environments in which the employees are working. If your organisation’s culture makes people stressed, undervalued or unappreciated there’s a very good chance they’ll make bad choices about their health - smoke more, drink more and eat worse.

Health and wellbeing programs can be almost worthless if a workplace culture is bad. Jeffrey Pfeffer from Stanford University said, in a recent paper[1], that unhealthy workplaces can cause up to 125,000 employee deaths each year and add up to $130 billion in excess annual company costs. “If employees are serious about managing the health of their workforce, and controlling their health care costs, they ought to be worried about the environments their workers are in,” Pfeffer said.

The business case for cultural change is clear but the conversation isn’t getting the attention it needs at the executive table. So, why is that?

We need to connect employees across different departments to engage in an integrated conversation about culture, health and safety and link it to the return on investment and employee value proposition for proving the benefits of a healthy workplace.  

Through asking the right questions and applying advanced analytics you can turn health risk into a conversation for growth. At Willis Towers Watson, we can link culture, health and safety data to bring insight into the effectiveness of your wellbeing initiatives and a baseline picture of your organisational health risk profile. Our unique combination of software, data and advice delivers you a clear picture. 

[1] https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/why-your-workplace-might-be-killing-you