Well-Being Without Compromise

What if a balance in well-being was possible? Feeling a sense of professional accomplishment, without compromising your personal life and individual needs. As the world continues to adjust to new working realities, what can employers do to contribute to their employees’ well-being? Here’s a quick look at the public broadcaster’s approach which integrates well-being into the overall culture of our organization.

The phenomenon of employees consciously disengaging from work has been spreading like wildfire on social media, popularizing terms such as the “Great Resignation,” “quiet quitting” and, more recently, “bare minimum Mondays.”?

But what’s driving this apparent trend toward disengagement in the workplace?

The answer you get depends on who you ask. Some will cite isolation, anxiety, a toxic work environment or conflicts with co-workers. For others, it might be unsatisfactory pay or a career advancing more slowly than hoped.?

But what can we do as employers to support our teams, keep them motivated, engaged and cohesive, while maintaining a productive and respectful workplace that isn’t simply driven by stress?

Refocusing on well-being

The path we’ve taken at CBC/Radio-Canada is to provide our employees with tools to foster self-care. Self-care looks different for every individual, and achieving well-being is a constant work-in-progress.?

Geneviève Hébert , Senior Director, Learning and Development, says that the pandemic really brought the importance of mental health to the fore. “During COVID-19, people were flocking to our webinars on work/life balance, languishing and well-being. The level of participation was higher than anything I’ve seen in my 10 years on the job. We could sense that people were tired, stressed out, even desperate at times, and definitely looking for solutions.”

From industry surveys, we also noticed that well-being at work was an increasingly important factor in attracting and retaining talent.

In light of these findings, a strategy focused on employee well-being became an essential component of our HR approach.?

To support employees (and their loved ones) in their personal lives, we recently launched across the country a portal that provides one-stop access to a wide range of health, well-being and lifestyle benefits and resources. Focus is on key areas of well-being in everyday life — physical, financial, emotional, mental, family and social. More specifically, the portal provides access to personalized nutrition and fitness plans, online coaching, virtual physiotherapy, vendor discounts and more. Virtual healthcare services and an employee and family assistance program are also offered.

Work/life balance is another key consideration, one that also ranks high on the list of conditions sought after by job seekers or proponents of quiet quitting, among others. Geneviève Hébert adds:

“People no longer want to make concessions on maintaining balance in their lives."

Supporting our teams

What can we do to support our teams in their quest for balance at a time when the job market is particularly tight?

One of the tangible actions in our strategy was to use our engagement survey to measure well-being, in particular through a question on psychological health combined with some other questions already in the survey. Incorporating mindfulness into our daily routine is another technique that has proved successful since our program was introduced (pre-pandemic). And that’s only the beginning. We’ll soon be launching the “Five Minutes of Mindfulness” challenge, while also building a community of peer supporters to help journalists deal with the realities of increasingly difficult work-related situations. Our managers, who act as de facto guardians of their teams’ well-being, will also have access to well-being resources as part of a revamped development program. According to Geneviève Hébert:

“There is a constantly growing pressure on people. It’s important to preserve a human dimension in everything we do, whether it’s among co-workers or in the manager/employee relationship. We need to have open and genuine conversations and take the time to listen to each other."

A brave new world of work

The labour market is undergoing profound changes. The current economic climate is putting increasing pressure on workers in all sectors. COVID-19 turned the whole debate about workplace flexibility on its head by normalizing remote work. HR trends such as quiet quitting can be seen as individual responses to the systemic transformations that are taking place.

It’s now up to each organization to develop a strategy to take care of their talent, engage their teams and give them the support they need to thrive without sacrificing their well-being.