What Exactly Is Wellbeing? How To Get Sustained Wellbeing. And What DOESN'T Get Sustained Wellbeing.

Covid 2020. Covid 2021. Job uncertainty. Recession. Bear markets. Inflation. More uncertainty. In a time of chronic stress and uncertainty, we have all succumbed to the erosion of our Wellbeing, to some extent. Some people have managed to keep the effects to a minimum and 'keep on keeping on', some would call this resilience, and others have felt the effects wearing them down progressively. Waiting for some alleviation. In an effort to find some relief, most have turned to Wellbeing.

On a personal level, maybe more of us are making more of a conscious effort to keep away from stressors we can control, do more 'mindfulness' and 'yoga' and other 'wellbeing' accepted activities. On the work front, managers and directors have thrown any and all spare cash at 'wellbeing'. Frameworks, workshops and training. And endless surveys. Intuitively this is what we will all seek, when something is injured or compromised, in this case our psyche, we seek the fixing. Completely logically and sensible. The only issue with this is, when something becomes the 'latest' thing, all kinds of misconceptions mushroom prolifically. Combine this with the information age that has come with the exponential growth of technology and media, and you have a rife misinformation age. And for some reason, in most cases, the misinformation always seem to spread further and be accepted more willingly, than the accurate information. Primarily because the misinformation will offer a 'quicker' fix. Given the choice, in the absence of all facts, people will always go for the quicker fix. Which will almost always result on the entire money put into these 'quicker' fixes being wasted. Though is seldom recognised as such, because 'everyone' is doing the same fix.

So what is wellbeing? Wellbeing comes from 'A Well Being'. This comes from a mental state first. Go to the gym all you want, but if we are experiencing chronic mental strain, this will eventually most likely manifest in physical symptoms if we don't deal with it. Wellbeing comes from mental health first. Wellbeing is subjective. No one can decide for you what makes you satisfied and what doesn't. And wellbeing is about satisfaction, not happiness. There is no actual state as 'happiness', rather it is an umbrella term for a collection of positive feelings. This is why one person can have a million dollars and still not see it as enough, and be dissatisfied, and be experiencing 'illbeing', where someone else would view this amount as exceptionally satisfactory, and be experiencing 'wellbeing'.

Wellbeing is the level of satisfaction we ourselves ascribe to the crucial facets of our psyche; biological, social and psychological factors that make up our life components.

Wellbeing IS NOT about fruit bowls, casual Fridays and the office gaming room. Built on the bones of endless 'wellbeing surveys' to build wellbeing frameworks from. Click to read more on The Problem With Wellbeing Surveys Is, They Don’t Manage The Risks To Wellbeing

How satisfied we are with various facets of life in turn depends very heavily on how we choose to interpret it. The age old adage saying , said best "IF YOU CHANGE THE WAY YOU LOOK AT THINGS, THE THINGS YOU LOOK AT CHANGE – WAYNE DYER" applies to actually building wellbeing. This isn't some magical yogi chant. It's NeuroScience. When we are in a state of 'illbeing' , we produce very specific neurochemicals in the brain. These create a self-perpetuating negative feedback loop, and the longer and more frequent these episodes of 'illbeing' are, the more permanent these negative impact neural connections become. Till we experience burnout and depression. And compromised immunity and ill health as these chemicals also erode and kill other brain cells and all other cells and organs in the body generally. We 'feel' terrible, physically and mentally (which includes emotionally). This is where subjective perceptions come in. Tell yourself a million dollars isn't enough and all these negative impacts are experienced.

Conversely the same is true for 'wellbeing'. The very different chemicals we release in the brain when we are in a positive state become self-enforcing and permanent with time also. These chemicals up-regulate immunity, repair the damage the negative chemical impact has and we feel remarkably well, physically, mentally and emotionally. The 'thriving' and 'flourishing' experienced. When we are in 'wellbeing' we are able to withstand greater demands, resilience, we can think faster, problem solve better, have significant greater agility and innovation and are better at productive collaboration and productivity generally. Wellbeing is good for the workplace. It is good for us as individuals. This is where we can build our plans to improve our subjective perceptions and literally learn to 'switch' the good chemicals on, in preference to the bad.

We may not be able to control inflation, but learning to recognise when we are in a negative loop, then strategising out of it, after identifying specifically what the stressor about inflation is, is the ONLY way to build sustained wellbeing. But one of the most crucial foundations of being ABLE to built wellbeing is that, first, sources of psychological harm HAVE to be mitigated. In legal workplace H&S Psychosocial Risk terms, they have to be either removed, or managed to minimise. This can only be done once stressors are first identified.

Wellbeing CAN NOT be sustained without first removing and mitigating Psychosocial Harm. The Legal workplace requirement. Wellbeing is not a Legal requirement. Removing harm is.

And this where most workplaces go wrong. Understanding these dynamics. If we take the neurological basis, it becomes easy to see that we can not possibly have the good chemicals sustaining and promoting all the good changes to brain functionality and body repair if we have not first stopped all the brain and, immunity and body corrosion first, brought on by chronic stress. The sources of these chronic stressors, effect both workplace productivity, and also wellbeing for the individual. Most workplaces try to address this issue by having 'engagement' and 'wellbeing' surveys. But these are reactive management platforms. By the time you are measuring engagement, wellbeing, psychological safety, burnout, it has already happened. All you are doing with these surveys if you measure reactive, after the fact, constructs, is reacting to a problem that has already happened. And building plans, frameworks and strategies after the horse has bolted, and is grazing several fields over. You are not being proactive, and preventing harm in the first place.

Not realising that these are reactive strategies, will often have little to no sustained long term effects, most workplaces will put out more surveys to try and understand why, more money will be spent on fixes that won't stick, individuals will suffer more as the original psychological stressors aren't fixed and will now start having cumulative effects, and so the cycle will go on. 'Wellbeing' fixes with surveys, workshops and other 'wellbeing' fixes with no complementary like-for-like psychological harm mitigation, money spent on this incomplete strategy, little sustained benefit or results, more surveys, more money, more incomplete implementation for sustained wellbeing, survey fatigue, money wasted and seen as a fruitless area, survey fatigue, problems not fixed at the root causes, individual fatigue, burnout, high turnover, low productivity.

80% less; effective management, resource utilisation, mental health support for employees, agility, innovation, resilience, productivity. If you manage wellbeing, from wellbeing.

The only known predecessor and Lead Indicator of wellbeing is the Psychosocial Risk Climate. This is the Psychological Health foundation of the workplace.

The Psychosocial Risk Climate is where all things Psychological start and is the root cause of all things downstream. Wellbeing. Psychological Safety. Psychological Harm. Engagement. Resilience. Innovation. Capability & Development. Learning & Development. People & Culture. Organisational Commitment. Burnout.

And that's why the legal requirement in workplaces is to remove and minimise the psychological harm in the workplace. First. To mitigate it, you need to first identify the individual component stressors. To identify individual stressors and psychological risk, you have to scan and manage from the Psychosocial Risk Climate. The Preventive Harm Lead Indicator. To Wellbeing and Psychological Safety and Harm. Do this and you are removing or minimising all the detrimental effects to the individual. Because everyone has the legal right to come to work and go home safely, from physical and psychological harm.

How do you get SUSTAINED wellbeing? Manage and measure from the psychosocial Risk Climate, the eroder of wellbeing when harm is not removed or not managed sufficiently first. How do you NOT get sustained wellbeing? By measuring and managing from wellbeing strategies themselves.

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The author's is founder of EnableOrg? - Healthy Workplace Experts Consulting & Software. Scanning the Preventive 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, an Executive Coach and is a current Board Director.?