It's good to see workplace wellness take its rightful place in organisational life. There was a time when a fruit bowl in the staff kitchen and shoulder rubs at your desk ticked the box HR could hang its hat on. (I know. I used to book extra blueberries and one masseuse per shoulder for myself.)
And I'm encouraged by the wellspring of thought leadership in the field. Business leaders are sincerely committed to psychological safety, and the evidence bears out that the bottom line is healthier for it.
We know culture eats strategy for breakfast. And I see a lot of great wellbeing strategy taking place. What I don't see is leadership teams embodying — and aligning on — what wellbeing looks like when the pressure is on.
Let's call that trauma. Not the kind that leaves a person unable to function, though that happens more than we admit. The kind that happens when the stakes are high, when unclear emotions cloud decisions, and when fear is lurking behind the ego. One of the big consulting firms published a well-researched piece on exactly this in April — you can read it here.
The conditions test
If, like me, you've wondered how much of any change initiative actually sticks — workplace wellness included — look no further than the conditions people are expected to change their behaviour in. Do those conditions acknowledge the authentic truth of what causes the lack of wellness — restructures, cost cutting, outsourcing? Or is it pressed out in comms as "navigating change"?
I've facilitated workshops for teams on the frontlines of humanitarian aid in Eastern Afghanistan, and for charities working out how to raise enough funds to save lives. I've seen first-hand how wellbeing takes a back seat when lives are on the line. Put a line in the P&L on it and, when push comes to shove, wellbeing at work is in danger of becoming transformation in new clothes — with the cachet of psychosocial safety law now baked in.
Remember when emotional intelligence promised the same results? Anyone in that industry will tell you it worked wonders. For a lot of individuals, it did. Especially if you were selling emotional intelligence as a service. I was that guy.
But when the rubber hit the road, what happened? The people who got jazzed up learning about emotional intelligence never field-tested it in the conditions that mattered most: with leaders who didn't do the training with them, in teams that forgot it all when deadlines mattered more than feelings, or when the next intervention arrived with a new promise. Neuroscience at Work. Positive Psychology. Workplace Wellness. I don't mean to shoot the messenger. It's the message that needs to go to the mechanics for a grease and oil change.
The fix was in
So if we're managing wellbeing for a genuine performance uplift, what can be done?
First: be realistic about what's deliverable. I recently worked with an HR team who wanted a one-hour workshop titled "Balance, not Burnout". I didn't push back at first — I've made a living dealing with the hand I'm dealt in workshop settings. I call it contracting on the fly. It's not clean, I know.
Then I let them know how unrealistic it is to manage burnout when 12-to-14-hour days guarantee it. Twenty minutes in, we acknowledged the fix was in: the managers making hell for their teams were drowning in the same circumstances themselves. That's where the real work was. Everything else was wellbeing window dressing.
It's not a symptom of the system. It is the system.
Easing overwhelm while making wellbeing a proxy for change misses the point. It's not a one-size-fits-all fix. It's a job-redesign fix. A lead-by-example demonstration. Culture served as the actual breakfast — if you'll pardon the loop back to the euphemism.
Naming the beast
Relief comes from naming the beast. System mapping — visually placing the elements of a system on the floor in front of the people affected by it — lets people accept what, until now, has been unacceptable. Being left out of decisions that affected them. The injustice of a role change that cut into their sense of identity. David Rock's SCARF model holds these neatly, and it's a useful starting point. But unless everyone can see it for themselves, and embody it, it's another intellectual exercise — not an emotional load-bearing practice.
That's workplace wellness with teeth.
I'm not done with this topic. I'm learning what works, and I have to start with what my experience has shown does not. This piece may come off as raw. It is. I'm finding my voice in a field where finding one's voice matters.