On Staff Wellbeing

This month we're talking about wellbeing. Last week, I told you some of my thoughts about my own wellbeing plan for the year.

Before I turn the blog over, I'm going to tell you the truth. I'm a workaholic. It might be obvious, given a full-time job, consulting practice, and weekly blog. I've thought a great deal about myself. How much of this is healthy? From my own side, I have so much energy, if I don't find plenty to keep my brain busy, I can go awry. But, as a manager, what does it show for my staff?

While I've always encouraged my teams to take time for themselves. I haven't always done this myself. Recently, I've really tried to turn off completely. I sent an email at 6 PM on 12/20 to a contractor. I received an out of office saying that emails received until 1/6 would be deleted. Now, I'm not sure I'd want to make people resend their emails, but the impetus of that out of office was to create a system of sanity when you return from holiday. In many ways, that's the key to wellness and work for me. Make choices that don't make it harder for you in the long run. So, if the pile of emails after vacation is stressful, then find ways not to have that.

This thoughtful approach to work and wellness is at the heart of the blog post for this week from Laura Crossley.

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Written by Laura Crossley

Our wellbeing can affect how we feel about our lives, jobs, and relationships. It’s an essential part of us and something that is precious and needs to be cared for. Wellbeing at work can be affected by lots of factors, such as relationships with managers and colleagues, the amount of involvement people have with organizational issues and decision-making, job design and the level of control individuals have over their own work, work demands, and the acceptability of flexible working.

Writing on organizational resilience will tell you that staff wellbeing is important because it helps organizations; staff who feel good perform better, are more willing to go the extra mile, take fewer sick days, and are more likely to stay at an organization in the long-term. These are, of course, all great reasons to support the wellbeing of your staff. However, I’d argue this isn’t just about developing more resilient organizations; surely being nice to colleagues, showing kindness and empathy, and treating people with respect is basic human decency and ethically the right thing to do?

Self-care is important and it’s helpful to know the things we can do as individuals to boost our wellbeing but it’s not good enough to treat colleagues badly and think that’s okay because they can look after themselves. Employers and organizations have a moral and ethical responsibility to support the wellbeing of their staff and (in here in the UK, at least), a legal responsibility too.

So, as well as doing the basics of treating people with respect, what else can organizations do to support and promote staff wellbeing? As a starter, I’d suggest:

• Put in place effective policies for managing people issues such as grievances and bullying, make sure staff are aware of these policies, and - crucially – ensure the policies are followed if complaints arise.
• Give staff clear information about how to get wellbeing support inside and outside your organization. It shouldn’t be a chore to find out where to get advice and help.
• Promote an environment where people feel as comfortable as possible talking about their mental health and how they are feeling.
• Ensure jobs are reasonable and appropriate and give staff as much control as possible over their work. If you are a natural micromanager, I implore you to please consider the wellbeing of your staff and learn to resist the temptation to oversee every detail of someone’s job.
• Empower, involve and value staff; ensure they feel comfortable about voicing concerns and include them, where possible, in decision-making. Communicate openly and often.
• Encourage people to take breaks and holidays. Staff are people, not machines.
• Cultivate a positive email culture. Do not expect people to respond to you when they are not working.
• Invest in training for managers to help them manage empathetically and in a people-centered way.
• Celebrate individual and team achievements and say thank you – it’s really easy and makes a big difference.

These are just some ideas and I’d love to hear what works for you and people in your organization.

We talk a lot in the sector about how the work we do has a positive impact on the wellbeing of visitors and participants. We congratulate ourselves on a job well done. But if your personal and organizational practices are negatively affecting staff wellbeing, I’d say there’s not a lot to celebrate. If we are truly to become a sector that promotes positive wellbeing, staff wellbeing must be made a priority.

Biography 
Laura is Head of Content at the National Football Museum, Manchester, UK, where she is responsible for overseeing collections, exhibitions, learning and community work. Laura is on Twitter at @lfcrossley