The second pandemic: leadership buy-in, manager role-modelling & budget cuts. Is workplace wellbeing on the back burner?

Are the great habits we formed during the global pandemic already a thing of the past?

Over the past few years, workplace wellbeing has been under the spotlight. Daily check-ins, blogs sharing real lived experiences and role modelling from managers keen to behave in a way that fosters a sustainable and supportive working environment are much more the norm now, but is commitment waning? Role modelling, at best, is inconsistent, and the prevalence of the micro-culture means organisations are under pressure to make a tangible impact on organisational resilience.?

During the triple lockdown, there was a real sense of ‘we’re in this together’. For all the prolonged uncertainty and the myriad of challenges we faced, the community spirit within our workplaces and hometowns across the country provided a shining silver lining and created stronger bonds.

We checked in on ourselves, and we checked in on others. The simple smaller acts of kindness helped bolster morale. A more holistic approach to team meetings become commonplace, with company engagement cultivating community spirit and camaraderie.

The move to a more human touch is one of the biggest positives to come out of the pandemic era.?The organisations that embraced this fully benefited the greatest. Leaders who were vulnerable and communicated emotion alongside business objectives consistently and with transparency built trust with employees. Companies with such role models lead by example, sharing their own personal experiences and insights, placing the human before the capital. It bred a new type of workplace dynamic.

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Leadership buy-in is down, stress is up

Fast forward to today, and there is very much a sense that wellbeing is sliding down the company agenda. The?CIPD’s Health and Wellbeing at Work 2022?report reveals that 70% of HR respondents agree that employee wellbeing is on senior leaders’ agendas (down from 75% last year), and 60% believe that line managers have bought into the importance of wellbeing (down from 67% last year). Whilst these drops aren’t huge, are they an indicator of things to come??

Meanwhile, stress remains very high within the workplace; 79% of HR respondents reported stress-related absence in their organisation last year, rising to 90% for large organisations. In addition, 67% of respondents are aware of some form of leaveism where people use their annual leave allowance to work, and 81% say they have observed presenteeism, working when ill, among those working from home.?

Mental health: the second pandemic

The NHS Confederation said that 10 million people are likely to need further support in the next 3-5 years.

As such, mental health is being dubbed the second pandemic and a national crisis. Add to this soaring inflation, energy costs, interest rates, and financial worries to match, and we are doubling down on the very fragile state of workplace wellbeing.

If we're not very careful, this winter is set to be a dark one.

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Rise of the micro-culture

We have to look to organisations for support, and support is more than just words. You can tick all of your wellbeing boxes and say all the right things to your people, but unless you embody these words consistently across your business and show meaning through action, there will be little impact on the support people feel.

Wellbeing initiatives, when preventative, can shift a culture from stigma to support. For example, when we partner with organisations at fifty50, we look to invest in their people and help them to build mental fitness and resilience. There is clear buy-in that in order to maximise performance, wellbeing has to come first. Once people are equipped with the skills to do this, they are able to reach their goals, unlock potential and sustain the continued demands of modern-day working life.

The manager's role is critical in creating a positive micro-culture within an organisation. Managers are often the first port of call for an employee when they are struggling, and ensuring they don't fall at the first hurdle when signalling a need for support is vital. It takes energy and bravery to bring up a personal challenge at work, and managers are responsible for creating an environment where people feel safe to do so. If they don’t, presenteeism and absenteeism will continue, turning at worst into longer periods away from work and burnout.?

If there has ever been a time to acknowledge the importance of training managers and equipping them with the skills to prioritise wellbeing to maximise potential, now is that time.?

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Walking the wellbeing talk

Role modelling is the single most powerful attribute of a manager to create a positive micro-culture where people feel psychologically safe to be their authentic selves. Small tweaks can make a massive difference. A few ideas include:

• A weekly wellbeing meeting where people share how they are feeling rather than what they are doing.
• Creating a check-in and check-out template and sharing updates and small wins via slack etc., to help people start and finish strong.
• Acknowledging the need for more human interactions & asking the team how to deliver.
• Investing in coaching and training to upskill managers and help them to walk the talk.?
• Sharing lived experiences each month across the organisation via a guest blog or vlog.
• A regular check-in session over coffee, where people can come to talk and receive support from wellbeing champions.

If senior leaders start to pay less attention to health and wellbeing, this will impact culture and resilience at both the team and organisational level.

“Senior leaders have a defining influence on their organisation’s culture, and it’s in their gift to shape an environment where people feel safe to speak up about health issues and seek support.” - Rachel Luff, senior employment relations adviser at the CIPD.

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Reflections

• Do you know the wellbeing provisions available to your team?
• Do you know how to access them, and are you and your managers sharing this information?
• How clear is signposting within your organisation?
• Is there unnecessary red tape to access support? Can you suggest ways to improve and remove this?
• Do you have a consistent template for wellbeing-led 1:1 and team meetings?
• Have you considered a wellbeing buddy programme to create accountability and foster a culture of proactivity and prevention around wellbeing?

'Bait and switch' wellbeing?

Are employers window-dressing and talking the talk, before turning on their heels and refusing to walk the talk???

Investment into workplace wellbeing cannot just be when there is a crisis - reactive - and when budgets are flowing. Nor can it simply be a way to attract new hires. Reactive support places you in a critical cycle of never getting to the root cause of a problem. Clearly, now, we have a critical need and cutting budgets now will have a detrimental impact on employee #motivation and #morale. It's also worth keeping in mind that organisations have largely returned to a?'normal' cycle of business, and as such, the focus on wellbeing is shifting. The challenge with #presenteeism and #absenteeism is that they can go unnoticed until people hit burnout. Then it's super costly to reverse.

Such a short-sighted approach will result in a human potential deficit and further exacerbate the second pandemic. There are significant costs related to employee turnover and mental health related sickness. Indeed one HR manager I spoke to last week shared that #stress, anxiety and #depression are costing her business of c2000 employees a whopping ￡1.2m per year. This doesn't even account for presenteeism, arguably the largest cost associated with poor mental health.

Yet,?research shows that?55% of teams across the UK expect to have their budgets cut this year. If this happens, it will force wellbeing further down the agenda still, and it's the antithesis of what we need to be doing right now.?

Such an investment actually makes good business sense as poor mental health hits employers deep in their pockets.?Deloitte reports the annual costs of absenteeism, presenteeism, and turnover have increased by 25% since 2019, reaching an estimated annual total of ￡53-56 billion in 2020-21. Plus we know there is a strong ROI of over 5 x the initial investment.

There is a real opportunity to invest in your managers, to help them walk the wellbeing talk and create positive micro-cultures where people feel safe to bring themselves to work.?

Investment in workplace wellbeing is not an optional extra. It's fundamental to maintain a positive workplace culture where people feel able to contribute and reach their potential.

It's more than just awareness, it's action.?

There is no one size fits all approach to #workplacewellbeing. We can, however, work collectively to move the dial from reaction to prevention and move cultures from stigma to support. Without a healthy workforce, both in body and in mind, we cannot sustain high performance. Managers need to feel equipped to handle the many challenges presented at work and be able to support employees at any stage of their life cycle.?

It's time to link organisation-wide objectives to workplace wellbeing spending and to really underline that without investment into preventative wellbeing initiatives, quite simply, targets and objectives will not be met.

#TGIM #mentalfitness #resilience #workplacementalhealth #workplaceculture #fifty50coaching #fifty50 #prevention

For more information on fifty50 and our preventative workplace wellbeing support, please feel free to message me directly at [email protected]

Mental Health Awareness Training for Managers

Join us for a 3-hour engaging and immersive coaching-led training that is personalised to meet your needs. We take your managers beyond theory to reflect on their wellbeing and that of their team. They walk away with awareness and clarity on how to take action to walk their wellbeing talk and learn how to role model effectively.

Mental Fitness Coaching

fifty50's 'root cause' flexible coaching packages blend high-performance coaching with emotional wellbeing support. We catch people before they fall, equipping them to navigate life's ups and downs, understand their red flags, and build resilience and mental fitness.?