Is your culture making your team ill?

Here's the latest Travel Alert on your Inclusion Journey:

Staff at inclusive organisations are 1.6 times less likely to get sick because of their job

If you received our email newsletter on Monday, you'll know by now all about the link between inclusion and staff health and wellbeing.

Now we're going to dive deeper into how this impacts your organisation, and what you can do to build cultures that look after each member of staff as a whole person.

So this week we are covering:

?Why there is a staff wellbeing problem

??How you can build cultures of inclusive wellbeing

??What we've learned this week about wellbeing

Why is there a staff wellbeing problem?

Why did we start calling workers "human resources"? That set the tone, really, for treating employees as commodities to be used until they were used up.

Although organisations have had to, to a certain extent, accept that they have a responsibility to their staff's health, the attitude towards inclusion that still pervades so many workplaces - that it's just a load of "woke" fluff, and not relevant for serious business people - betrays the continuation of the Victorian factory owner approach to burning through a workforce. Which is why so many of them are burning out.

77% of staff have experienced burnout in their current job. (Deloitte)

When we don't see our staff as people - fully rounded individuals who are valuable and worthy of respect in themselves - then we don't treat them as such.

It might seem more pragmatic and efficient to focus on getting the work done and hitting the targets, and expecting employees to either contribute to that or get out of the way, but it's actually very damaging to a business' bottom line.

Presenteeism (staff struggling into work when they're ill) and staff absences are costing UK companies billions every year. Productivity, performance, engagement and retention are all suffering because of staff wellbeing issues - the biggest contributor being stress.

When staff are off sick, or when they leave because a job is impacting their wellbeing, the organisation loses out on skills, knowledge and experience, and has a gap that needs to be filled. Either existing staff need to cover the gap, adding more stress to their plates, or a costly recruitment process ensues.

We have to start to look after our staff better. The way to do this is to create cultures of inclusion - working environments that ask about and respond to the needs of all team members, that proactively look to remove barriers and issues, that encourage positive and supportive behaviours, that nurture each person's personal development, and that foster psychological safety and work/life balance.

Inclusion really does make a difference - staff at inclusive organisations are 1.6 times less likely to say that their job impacts their physical wellbeing. If you want your staff to be at work, doing their best work, then you need to prioritise inclusion.

We'd love to hear your thoughts:

How do you look after your team's wellbeing?

Let us know in the comments!

We want to hear your views

In 2024, we heard from many of our clients in the public sector about specific challenges that they were facing when it came to driving inclusion work. We want to do further research into this so that we can provide more support in 2025.

If you work in the public sector, then we would love to hear about your experiences with diversity and inclusion work.

Please take a few minutes to answer some short questions. We'll be sharing a report into our findings in the new year.

Share your views on inclusion in the public sector.

How to build cultures of inclusive wellbeing

Here are the top things to consider when building a culture that nurtures inclusion in a way that supports staff wellbeing:

• Ask staff about their needs - understanding the barriers, challenges and issues that staff deal with is the first step to supporting your people in the way that will enable them to fulfil their potential.
• Audit access - review what is in place to allow staff equitable access to physical spaces, digital tools and work processes.
• Training - do your staff all understand about elements like neurodiversity and disability? Do they recognise how to support a staff struggling with mental health, or how to approach someone experiencing, for example, a bereavement? Do they know how to act as allies for one another to challenge bullying or unfair work practices? Make sure your staff all have the necessary knowledge and skills - a workplace culture is created by everyone who works there.
• Leadership - your leadership team, in particular, need to understand how to support different types of people, how to build cultures of psychological safety, and how to respond to varied needs.
• Legal obligations - looking after your staff's wellbeing isn't just the right thing to do. Disability, neurodiversity and certain health challenges are all protected by the Equality Act, under the legislative definition of disability. So failing to understand and respond to your team's needs could have serious consequences.

If you want to know more about how to build inclusive cultures that support staff wellness, email [email protected]

What we've learned this week about... wellbeing

Here's our learnings from a small selection of relevant recent news stories. If you want to get all the latest diversity and inclusion headlines in your inbox, subscribe to our email updates.

37% of UK employees feel year-end stress - Workplace Wellbeing

https://workplacewellbeing.pro/news/37-of-uk-employees-feel-year-end-stress/

The findings from Workhuman’s? latest Human Workplace Index reveal key insights about employee wellbeing at year-end and key factors to improving it in 2025.

Despite its reputation as the “most wonderful time of the year,” December often brings heightened productivity demands. Over a third of employees point to increased workloads (35%) and the push to meet year-end KPIs (34%) as significant sources of increased stress.

Another contributor to year-end stress is the inability to fully disconnect, with close to 20% of UK employees taking less time off than they’d like during the festive period due to heavy workloads. A whopping 36% plan to respond to work emails even during their time off – leaving little room for rest and recharge. Unsurprisingly, employees have named work-life balance as the top priority for employers to improve in 2025, surpassing other factors like company culture and work arrangements.

What can you learn from this story?

• Consider whether you are putting excessive pressure on your team towards the end of the calendar year, or the financial year, to chase targets - this is likely to have a negative impact on their productivity and motivation in the long term, and might mean you lose them altogether.
• Make sure your targets and workloads are realistic - if you're asking too much from your people, then not only will you always fall short, which is demoralising for everyone and unhelpful for your financial planning, but you'll also drive staff to mentally check out or to actually quit.
• Take steps to support the mental wellbeing of your team, especially at times of high stress.
• Encourage your staff to switch off during time away from the office - put in place policies to discourage people from checking emails outside their working hours, for example, and make sure expectations for delivery and from customers are set accordingly.

Influencer's brand faces backlash over bullying claims - BBC News

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy4pkypde42o

Swedish clothing brand Djerf Avenue is facing a backlash from fans following claims of bullying and body-shaming against its founder Matilda Djerf.

An investigation by Swedish news outlet Aftonbladet reported that 11 current and former employees described being belittled, called names and yelled at in the workplace.

Aftonbladet reported that some models were told they didn't fill out a pair of jeans, while others were called fat.

Djerf Avenue's website promotes a world "filled with kindness, inspiration, and respect," and the brand is known for its size inclusivity and diverse model representation.

What can you learn from this story?

• Leaders need to be aware of what is happening "on the ground", rather than assuming that the culture of the business is positive just because they have good intentions.
• Ask for (anonymous) input from staff regularly so you can understand their real experience of working for you - segment responses by demographic data so you can identify any groups that might be subjected to more negative behaviour or barriers than others.
• Talking about an inclusive culture is not enough - leaders need to put in place mechanisms to foster this culture, and to identify and deal with any issues.
• Inclusive cultures require defined policies, processes and behaviour guidelines, as well as regular training and reflection.
• The backlash if customers discover that your talk of inclusion is hollow could be very damaging to your brand.

That's it from us for this week!

If you have any questions on your inclusion journey, you can always reach out to us at [email protected], call us on 01273 044834, or head to our website watchthisspace.uk for information on everything we have to offer!

See you next week.