CIPD Advanced Diploma response to wellbeing in the workplace by Philip Rossi
One of our clients wrote this for their ‘CIPD Advanced Diploma in Strategic Learning and Development’ and it’s too good not to share…
Question:
The CIPD’s (2022) Health and Wellbeing at Work Survey suggests that employee wellbeing has become less of a business priority in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. Critically analyse how People Professionals can ensure that wellbeing remains an organisational priority. Justify your suggestions.
Answer:
As the conclusions of ‘The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development’s (CIPD) Health and Wellbeing at Work Survey (2022)’ are constructed from survey responses, it is likely that what is being highlighted is a perception that wellbeing has become less of a business priority post-Covid-19. Businesses, after all, need to survive and remain profitable to provide any benefit or wellbeing to their employees and therefore, although the focus may currently be on the bottom line, the long-term priorities, which include wellbeing, may remain unchanged. This is a worrying observation in itself, because it demonstrates that wellbeing may still not be properly understood as a component of productivity within businesses, and it also shows that People Professionals within businesses are not doing a good job at reinforcing wellbeing as a priority internally.
A powerful argument for maintaining wellbeing as an organisational priority is to identify that the organisational structure and employee wellbeing are entwined. Operational effectiveness, determining how work is performed, decisions are made, and resources allocated, is key to both promoting wellbeing and the success (in terms of profit) of the organisation (Chen, Y. & Huang, J. C. H., 2018). Taking an Operational Design (OD) approach, placing adequate focus on designing well-structured processes, systems, and reward structures can improve job satisfaction, employee retention, reduce stress, and increase employee engagement (Armstrong, M. & Taylor, S., 2014). It is therefore incumbent upon People Professionals to focus attention on wellbeing as a vital component of organisational design and make the case that implementing initiatives which are incongruous to wellbeing are likely to be to the detriment of the organisation’s long-term success. The implementation of initiatives such as wellness programmes or flexible working policies, while important, will be limited in their effectiveness if they are not synergistic to the business’s day-to-day operations (CIPD, 2019). People professionals must therefore convince their organisations that it is imperative that OD aligns with any wellbeing initiatives, otherwise employee engagement in both the operation (read productivity) and initiative will be negated (Robbins, S. P. & Judge, T. A., 2017).
In times of capital restraint, such as that now following COVID, the current period of market suppression and relatively high interest rates, People Professionals are able to make a clear economic case for focusing on wellbeing by quantifying those factors that wellbeing actively seeks to address. While the effect of wellbeing may be hard to quantify over the short-term for factors such as productivity and staff engagement, the costs of increased staff turnover that may include the retraining and promotion of existing staff, may be easier to identify. For those businesses who monitor staff wellbeing on an ongoing basis, correlations between reduced productivity and diminished wellbeing could be argued to be mutually causal (Chen & Huang, 2018). A ‘positive work environment’ has been repeatedly demonstrated to improve productivity, attract better talent and lower training costs (CIPD, 2019; Robbins & Judge, 2017). Additionally, in the time following COVID, where wellbeing is viewed as a societal issue, People Professionals are well placed to highlight the commitment their organisations have towards wellbeing and leverage this to enhance their organisation’s reputation and improve customer loyalty (Armstrong & Taylor, 2014). It has been proven that consumers and clients view businesses that focus on employee wellbeing favourably, which provides an opportunity to provide external communications that focus on this work (Chen &Huang, 2018).
If current circumstances do not allow for a review of core operations, People Professionals will be able to ensure that employee wellbeing remains an organisational priority by maintaining internal communications promoting the positive work and initiatives already taking place. One benefit of utilising these initiatives is that they focus attention and can maintain employee engagement towards a positive work environment. If provided with sufficient operational independence and strategic influence, People Professionals may also be able to take the opportunity to implement a new comprehensive employee wellbeing strategy. A comprehensive employee wellbeing strategy could include a suite of interventions such as support groups, DI and neurodivergence initiatives, promotion of flexible working arrangements and a review of cultural policies (CIPD, 2018; Ducharme, 2020). Although such a strategy is unlikely to have the long-term success of a full OD approach, through a wellbeing initiative, People Professionals can ensure that employees’ immediate needs are addressed, good morale is underpinned, and employees’ focus is directed to the positives within the business (Burke, 2018).
Beyond directed interventions, People Professionals can instead direct attention and organisational focus towards wellbeing by promoting a culture of openness and support, especially one directed towards senior management. Management can be directed, potentially with provision of relevant L&D resources, to encourage their reports to talk openly about their mental and physical health. Resources may already exist that employees can be directed to in order to provide support to those experiencing difficulties, without needing to direct additional resources towards the problem (CIPD, 2018; Ducharme, 2020). For those organisations with pre-existing wellbeing structures and initiatives, a simple focus on the way in which management communicates the organisation’s culture, directing L&D towards specified resources, and performance reviews that emphasise supporting employees, can ensure that employees continue to feel valued, supported, and engaged with, which will work to maintain wellbeing and overall organisational performance (Burke, 2018).
To conclude, People Professionals have numerous opportunities to promote wellbeing regardless of the business environment. Fundamentally, wellbeing can only diminish next to other priorities if it is not understood as a core element of operational effectiveness and People Professionals should be primarily focused on reinforcing the connection through OD. The Covid-19 pandemic is likely to mean that many organisations are in the midst of significant change, with fluid processes and uncertainty, in which case People Professionals can utilise additional levers and interventions to promote wellbeing. These interventions ought only to be prioritised and relied upon as a necessity until the organisational structure is stable, after which an approach based on initiative is unlikely to be sufficient to maintain and build positive employee wellbeing.
Well done Philip Rossi – thanks for sharing with us!
Standards International Team