The Problem With Wellbeing Surveys Is, They Don’t Manage The Risks To Wellbeing

The conventional thinking is when something bad happens (Covid) and someone is under increased stress, do something positive, offer them some wellbeing initiatives. This may have some benefits, but it is not a long-term robust or benchmark strategy.

Picture this, someone has a headache because they have an axe stuck in their head (the something bad). Taking the conventional thinking, you would tell him to take a Panadol for the headache (the something positive). Put this way it sounds utterly ridiculous. Of-course you need to take the axe out of his head first!!! Get to the root of the bad thing and fix that, then take a Panadol to get better. That’s what the benchmark, complete risk management of the scenario would look like. It’s common sense, right? Then why do have such an obtuse view to managing wellbeing in the workplace?

When we have increased workplace stress, stress is what compromises our wellbeing, (the headache), we don’t look first to fixing where it is coming from, we just throw Panadol at it. Yes I can hear you say, that’s what wellbeing surveys are for, to get to the root cause of finding the axe in the head. Only, it really isn’t. There are two fundamental issues with using wellbeing surveys to supporting staff wellbeing; (1) It is reacting to a problem in the workplace that wellbeing surveys just do not have in their scope to even look for, eg psychological distress caused by systems inadequacy (2) Wellbeing is a fluid state and by the time you take the survey to show areas needing work, the stress has almost always moved on to something else by the time you have implemented the original survey strategies.

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Take the above example of a Covid Wellbeing-Stress graph. It was early 2020ish that we started taking Covid seriously as a spreading virus. Initially most people thought it’s ‘all the way over there’, depicted as the low stress read around Jan 20. Quickly the news of a global spread was everywhere and by March 20 we were locking down. By this time everyone was taking it seriously and stress was beginning to rise, primarily due to uncertainty. The govt. did a great job having daily news briefs and sharing data, making most people feel a bit safer, that we had it under control, so stress abated some. By around this time Wellbeing Managers probably thought it was a good time to do a wellbeing survey to see how everyone is doing. But note that by this time the survey has already missed the peak uncertainty stress at lockdown, when wellbeing deteriorated and when people would have needed extra support. At the time it was happening. By the time the survey is initiated, stress is dissipating and the wellbeing data is already giving a false read to the big picture. It has missed the stress capture. Now depending on whether you are manually analysing data and then implementing fixes or use a software and the fixes are presented near real-time, the plan is then identified and put together for a ‘wellbeing programme’, the implementation can take anywhere from a couple of months to up to a year from there. Remember, the survey is taking only a snapshot of a read at a time when stress is back down and the wellbeing is relatively ok again, in this example.

?As time goes on, we watch the global figures rise, we are increasingly aware that we have no real end date to lockdown, uncertainty stress begins rising again, and as this state drags on, the stress levels rise, our wellbeing beginnings deteriorating to high levels. Yet the survey has already been done. The managers are in the process of providing solutions. The wellbeing plan is being drawn up and underway. Having measured wellbeing at a trough, which missed the ‘lockdown peak’ and the next ‘uncertainty peak’. Which means the solution that is being built is managing factors that have moved on. New stresses have materialised. Original stressors are replaced. The wellbeing and stress landscape is fluid. Yet the data the wellbeing plan is working from to implement a ‘wellbeing programme’ is static. And no longer accurate or fit-for-purpose. In this example, by the time the survey output plan is finally implemented, a new significant wellbeing stressor has surpassed all previous peaks, the prolonged effects of isolation. But the implemented fixes are for the likely mild uncertainty detected at the time of taking the survey. And by the time the next survey comes along, likely in a year, it’s another trough that detects none of these real time stressors already endured, nor the upcoming ones from ‘financial stress’ and ‘job insecurity’.

The wellbeing landscape has never been more fluid than in the past two years. Yet everyone is primarily still using very conventional methods, that were never real-time anyway! The answer of course is not to do daily wellbeing surveys. That would be hugely impractical. People would suffer survey fatigue. Return rates would drop. Of those returned they would primarily just be tick box exercises, no real value in answers. When would people ever do any work if they were doing surveys everyday? When would there ever be the chance to implement any wellbeing programmes if everyday was survey day so we could get real-time accurate feedback on wellbeing? And these practical implications is exactly why wellbeing risk management ie. Managing the risks to wellbeing is not the place you should be measuring at all. Wellbeing is a downstream lag, or reactive indicator. By the time you are measuring it, the deterioration has already happened. Managing the risk after it has happened is not risk managing at all. It is cleaning up the spill. And not even where the spill is now, but where one was 6 months ago. So todays spill is always yet to be attentioned. And so you are never really managing wellbeing in real-time with surveys. Manual or software generated. It’s still a snap of the past landscape. The only time this is acceptable wellbeing management for real time wellbeing risk, is if you are implemented fixes the same day. Which is never the case.

So how do you manage wellbeing risk so you are treating the problem while it is still relevant? Lead indicators for wellbeing. Which are evidence-based predictors of wellbeing. In this case the psychosocial climate of the workplace. Measure the psychosocial safety climate, and the micro stressors are detected before they erode wellbeing. So you are fixing problems before they even are problems. Take the axe in the head example above. If someone walks into your office with an axe already in their head, not much you can do prevent the scenario after the fact. That's what a wellbeing survey is, showing you damage after it has happened. But if you had a better vantage point, where you could see someone running with an axe towards the person who is about to have it lodged in their head, you are in a position to actually prevent it. The axe, the pulling out of the axe, the need for Panadol, preventable with a more advantageous vantage point. All of it. That is what wellbeing risk management should look like. Measuring and acting on the psychosocial climate that leads to wellbeing. Preventing the problem. Not measuring how bad it is with wellbeing surveys that won’t pick up all the wellbeing issues prior and after the survey. And then implementing a plan based on this one snapshot of shifting sand.?

Now don't get me wrong. You absolutely should measure wellbeing. But not as your baseline starting point to fixing the risks to wellbeing. Wellbeing ideally should only be measured as a monitoring point. To see how the fixes you implemented, to upstream lead indicators, is effecting your lag indicator of wellbeing. As well as then your further down stream effects to Burnout, Engagement and Resilience. In other words, for benchmark wellbeing management to prevention of wellbeing deterioration, start your wellbeing plan measuring points at the psychosocial safety climate. This is the micro risk detector. So you can act BEFORE the harm to wellbeing happens. Then monitor your wellbeing, burnout, engagement and resilience to keep track of how your action plan is effecting these factors. And manage at your your psychosocial safety level, the prevention strategy. Just one platform to manage all the rest. As shown by evidence findings. Knowledge moves on. Once we blood transfusions could just go from one persons vein straight into anothers! Now we are better equipped with knowledge. Take a donors blood and not only blood type it, but check it for diseases BEFORE transfusing a patient. Don't just measure wellbeing and act. Before wellbeing there is psychosocial safety.

And that’s what all reactive measures, such as wellbeing, resilience, engagement, burnout, organisational commitment do, tell you what happened AFTER the fact. None of these prevent the problem. The management between lead indicators, which pick up micro risks, hence being able to 'predict' down stream bigger risks, and lag indicators is significant. Lag indicators, indicators of risk after the fact ie lagging the event, consume roughly 80% more resources, and are never as robust. There will continue to be holes in the 'plan', because it is always a shifting landscape. Even when you do individual wellbeing automated wellbeing that tell you what area to fix, the harm has happened, and the 'area to fix' is only an area. Telling you you are stressed at work on life work balance output doesn't tell you what is causing stress at work. to Measures such as Burnout, Engagement, Resilience and wellbeing are all lag indicators. When you manage by way of lead indicators, predictors, measuring micro risks BEFORE they eventuate into incidents that have happened, you consume significantly less resources, your foundations and 'action plans' are robust and you have filled the 'holes' before they become holes. Less costs. Less risks. Healthier people, psychologically and physically. Thriving organisations. As a rough estimate, for every 1 serious incident, lag indicator that has already happened, there are roughly 300000 opportunities to catch it, in the micro at-risk stressors that would have 'predicted' the incident if anyone was looking at these micro-stressors, the leading indicators, as shown in the illustration above. The lead indicators. And that's what measuring the psychosocial safety climate is. The lead indicator for not only Wellbeing, but all the other psychological lag indicators, psychological harm, safety, engagement, resilience, burnout, organisational commitment. Measure and manage this one lead indicator of Psychosocial Safety climate, and you are preventive risk managing not only Wellbeing, but also Psychological Harm (which is your legal obligation), Psychological Safety, Burnout, Engagement, Resilience, Organistional Commitment etc. All at once. It's not magic. It's not snake oil. It's current knowledge in the field from evidence-based studies.

Managing at the prevention stage, lead indicators, roughly equates to only 20% of the cost when compared to managing reactively, which is not risk managing at all. Work with wellbeing surveys instead of psychosocial safety climate measures and you are always only fixing a problem after the harm, that could have been prevented, at 80% more cost. And not likely implementing the right strategy in your wellbeing plan for what is needed in real time anyway.

Psychosocial safety climate, different to psychological safety, is also the foundation of the legal obligation of managing psychological harm in the workplace. Read Truly Want Workplace Psychological Harm Mitigation, Psychological Safety and WellBeing? Then Look Beyond Working on Psychological Safety and WellBeing . Managing wellbeing is not at all a legal obligation for PCBUs and Directors, to read more on this click here . Manage psychosocial safety climate, and you get true Wellbeing for managing the actual risks to Wellbeing. Meet Legal Psychological Harm management obligations. And also achieve Psychological Safety needed for inclusivity, speaking up, collaboration, innovation and more. Why would you not shift your focus away from Wellbeing surveys showing the past in a shifting landscape, to Psychosocial Safety Climate showing the preventable risks? Why would you not stop the axe being imbedded in the head in the first place?

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The author's is founder of EnableOrg? - Proactive Corporate Wellness Software. Scanning the Psychosocial Risk Climate for micro-risks, to Prevent the macro-risks. Her PhD research focused on Psychosocial Risk Climate.?EnableOrg.com

Ranjeeta has had a career spanning organisational development and governance. She has worked across industries and sectors in UK, Australia and NZ. She has been an expert panel member for JAS-ANZ Auditor development, been a Health & Safety at Work Act 2015 Auditor, an ISO trainer across several varying Standards and an Executive Coach.

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