Well-Being in the Workplace

I have noticed over the last year or so a growing number of articles that focus on Employer’s awareness and responsibility for Employee well-being – but without tangible guidance on how this can be managed and achieved or indeed evidence of a return on the investment that justifies it, what would move this forward to being seen as an intrinsic part of any organisation’s make up?

A recent report by the CIPD “Growing the health and well-being agenda: From first steps to full potential.” (January 2016), offers information that will assist Employers in growing their skill and expertise in this area.

A fundamental premise for any management structure is to appreciate that powerful impact the interpersonal relationship direct line managers/team leaders has on the effectiveness and engagement of employees; in essence how my managers communicates with me and I with them, directly impacts on how happy and productive I am in the workplace.

The CIPD in this report put forward a well-being pyramid to assist Organisations with educating their management team on how to approach this humanistic element of their role as people managers – not an easy task.

In the well-being pyramid, direct links with Culture, Leadership and People Management are made to Well-being which leads to maximum Employee Engagement, so how do you create an environment that creates this for your people?

The recommendation is to take a more holistic view and then design realistic actions around this. The well-being model uses the five domains of well being: health, work, values / principles, collective/social and personal growth.

Dependant on the size of your Organisation, it’s about looking at what is realistic to incorporate and involving your people through every stage – communication is the cornerstone.

The recommendations they make are available in the report here (you may be surprised by how many you already have in place!)

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Submitted by our Leadership & Personal Development tutor, Gina Ryan