Is Your Workplace Helping or Hurting Your Wellbeing

I used to coordinate multimillion dollar community mental health and substance abuse services in three counties in the State of Georgia. I got a lot of experience managing teams of professionals, directing programs, and overseeing service delivery. This experience taught me the value of the relationship between employee wellbeing to successful product and service delivery.

Employee wellbeing also impacts a company’s ability to retain quality staff. The ongoing nature of the pandemic has made wellbeing and company practice a timely topic of discussion.

I am no longer in community mental health, but I believe that my experiences have made the difference in how I approach my work with overstressed, overwhelmed, and overworked women.

Before getting into the heart of the topic, let’s talk about the difference between wellness and wellbeing. Gallup defines wellness as follows:

A healthy lifestyle beyond acute illness. It refers to a state of physical
health in which people have the ability and energy to do what they want to do in life,
without chronic suffering

Basically, our physical habits support wellness. This includes eating, exercise or physical activity, and quality of sleep. Companies began to focus on wellness to improve positive health outcomes for employees. They recognized that unhealthy behaviors contributed to chronic health conditions which increased costs. Wellness is a component of wellbeing.

Wellbeing provides a wholistic view of life as we desire it to be. Researchers consider five life spheres to determine the wellbeing of individuals and communities. The spheres are career, social, financial, and community. Gallup assesses wellbeing by asking questions related to those five spheres. Individuals provide feedback of their feelings regarding:

• The work they do every day
• Meaningful relationships
• Household finances and money management
• Energy vs. fatigue
• Community life

I will share a little more detail about each sphere.

Career and Work

Much is being written today about workplace stress and its connection to the ongoing pandemic. We are facing increased disruption in each sphere of life. The workplace has increased unpredictability. This influences employees’ view of safety, security, and stability. As a result, employees experience increased stress.

Are we working in-person or at home? Are my keystrokes being counted to make sure I am really working and not doing my laundry while at home? Have I been exposed to COVID without my knowledge? Employers do not divulge the names of co-workers who are home due to COVID. So, we must rely on rumors and the company gossip line.

Meaningful Relationships

Many people have lost family, friends, colleagues, and co-workers to COVID. Some have lost multiple family and friends. The pain they experience from losing these meaningful relationships continues as they go to work daily.

Financial Health

The Pew Research Center reported on the economic impact the pandemic has had on personal finances. In the article, they report that 44% of Americans believe it will take them years to recover the losses they incurred. This, of course, varies based on race and ethnicity. People of color, Hispanics, Asians, and adults under the age of 30 have lost wages, lost jobs or have taken pay cuts since the onset of the pandemic.

Almost 40% of upper income families have fared better claiming that their financial situation has improved.

Energy

Sleep quality impacts energy levels. You can sleep all day, night and into tomorrow. If your sleep is disrupted by disturbing dreams, tossing, and turning, waking repeatedly, or waking early, you are probably not feeling well-rested. Physical and emotional fatigue zaps energy.

Community

The article Psychological Consequences of Social Isolation During COVID-19 Outbreak shares research on the mental health consequences of COVID. The article begins as follows:

Perceived social isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic significantly has had an extraordinary global impact, with significant psychological consequences. Changes in our daily lives, feeling of loneliness, job losses, financial difficulty, and grief over the death of loved ones have the potential to affect the mental health of many

Jeffrey Pfeffer is the Thomas D. Dee II Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University. He wrote the article The Overlooked Essentials of Employee Wellbeing. Dr. Pfeffer believes that job control and social support are the keys to supporting employee wellbeing.

Dr. Pfeffer cites the value of job control. Employees benefit from having autonomy to decide the work they will do and the ability to determine how to do it. In the article, he cited a study that determined that employees who experience chronic work stress were two times as likely to develop risk factors that contribute to heart disease and type 2 diabetes.

He recommends guarding against micromanagement by moving towards coaching and facilitating others. Dr. Pfeffer also promotes role autonomy and fluidity to increase motivation, job satisfaction and performance.

Social support has a positive impact on employee wellbeing. Competitive and transactional practices pit employees against each other. Companies can create and foster supportive environments.

• Building long term relationships with clients/customers and employees.
• Encouraging employees to support causes that are close to them.
• Changing the language of hierarchy that often separates leadership and employees.
• Foster relationship building and strengthen through common connections.

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