In today's fast-paced and demanding work environments, prioritising employee wellbeing is crucial. It fosters a positive work culture, enhances productivity, and ensures the long-term success for individuals, teams and businesses. 

Addressing wellbeing concerns effectively can be challenging. Despite recognising its value and importance, businesses often rely on superficial initiatives that fail to address underlying issues. 

The Importance of Wellbeing in the Workplace:

Wellbeing is not just a luxury; it's an essential need for both employees and organisations alike. It can directly influence employee productivity, health, and stress levels. When employees feel their wellbeing is prioritised, they naturally become more efficient and content, and develop healthy habits to perform at their best. 

As an HR practitioner, I'm witnessing a concerning rise in anxiety, stress and burnout within the workplace. Numerous factors have contributed to this alarming trend: the lingering impact of the pandemic, the transition to remote and hybrid work setups resulting in reduced human interaction, challenging economic conditions, and the uncertainty accompanying technological advancements. According to the latest Gallup report, titled "State of the Workplace: Global Trends 2023," stress has risen to record levels over the last decade, ranking as one of the most significant workplace trends. Work-related factors, such as low engagement and managers contribute to this distressing picture.

Recognising Common Pitfalls:

Despite growing awareness of the importance of wellbeing, many businesses often miss the mark in their efforts. One common mistake is solely relying on top line wellbeing initiatives that place obligations on individuals rather than the company. 

While implementing top-line initiatives such as yoga in the office, healthy food, stress management, work-life balance and setting boundaries are helpful, they remain insufficient without addressing the broader challenges. Initiatives like thoughtfully designed individual roles with a deliberate emphasis on building relationships and a sense of belonging, and comprehensive support systems that extend both within and outside the organisation through wellbeing partnerships.

The Mckinsey health institute interview with Tiffany Burns and Erica Coe "Beyond Burnout: What Helps and What Doesn't" explores the topic of burnout in the workplace and offers insights on effective strategies to address it. A key emphasis is on the need to shift focus from top-line wellbeing initiatives to addressing the fundamentals. 

Burns and Coe highlight that despite organisations investing in wellbeing programs, burnout rates continue to rise, suggesting these initiatives are not addressing the root causes of burnout and stress. Organisations should go beyond focusing on individual resilience and coping strategies, and instead pay attention to the systemic issues within the work environment that contribute to burnout. This includes examining the structural challenges and root causes of burnout, such as workload pressure, lack of support, toxic workplace behaviour, and cultural norms that promote unhealthy work practices.

An important consideration outlined in the interview is workload management. It suggests that companies need to rethink how work is allocated and ensure that employees have a reasonable and manageable workload. This may involve reallocating tasks, prioritising work, or even considering hiring additional employees to distribute the workload more effectively. They also emphasise the importance of social support and strong relationships within the workplace. Building a supportive culture that encourages collaboration, empathy, and open communication can help alleviate burnout and stress, and managers play a critical role in this.

RUSH's Approach to Wellbeing:

Wellbeing framework

At RUSH, we understand that wellbeing is not a one-size-fits-all solution. We have developed a comprehensive wellbeing framework based on four pillars: organisational support, social wellbeing, mental wellbeing, and physical wellbeing. This fits nicely with our core measures of wellbeing within our Engagement tool Peakon. Included in the framework is role design, risk assessments, wellbeing partnerships, ways of working, healthy living in the office and the prioritisation of social connection.

To keep the framework alive and to demonstrate our continued priority to wellbeing, every quarter we focus on initiatives aligned with one of these pillars, for example, mindfulness sessions (mental wellbeing), setting up sports teams and fun runs (physical wellbeing), role design (organisational support) and company social events for team building and bonding (social wellbeing). We are constantly reviewing our wellbeing offering and looking at ways to improve; we recognise we don’t always get it right/it will never be a perfect science. 

For businesses and leaders who may be uncertain about where to begin, the Ministry of Business and Innovation (MBIE) offers a valuable resource called the Wellbeing Policy Builder. This tool serves as a guide, providing step-by-step assistance in creating a plan tailored to your specific needs and circumstances.

Culture of Wellbeing

Senior leadership plays a pivotal role by modelling healthy practices regarding workload management and encouraging a healthy, transparent feedback culture. Businesses should aim to cultivate a culture of wellbeing that is top-to-bottom and vice versa. Within the organisation, individuals should foster mutual support, teamwork, and recognition of colleagues facing difficulties. 

Additionally, establishing a culture of psychological safety with clear channels for individuals to raise concerns, voice issues, and draw attention to problems. Encouraging such openness and being receptive to constructive feedback is embraced by senior leadership. Leaders must recognise the significance of wellbeing and engagement and foster a culture characterised by attentive listening, support, and the creation of a safe environment.

Integrating Wellbeing into Organisational Design

This MBIE article provides advice on how to optimise team performance and minimise burnout. They start by highlighting the importance of job design, clear role definitions, establishing clear and attainable goals and assisting with workload management. They also encourage a feedback culture with open discussions, engaging employees in workplace matters impacting their health and safety, and finding ways to recognise signs of stress among the workforce. 

At RUSH, we recently conducted a comprehensive review of our Operating Model with the aim of addressing structural role challenges that were causing overwork and stress. Through the implementation of these changes, our goal is to cultivate a more productive work environment by redistributing work more evenly, eliminating bottlenecks, granting teams greater autonomy, and providing enhanced coaching and mentoring for individualised role and career support.

While our new Operating Model is currently in the implementation phase, we are committed to supporting our employees through considered transition plans and opportunities for upskilling, ensuring that everyone is well equipped for success. We will closely monitor the effectiveness of the new model, specifically in terms of meeting the wellbeing needs and workload concerns of our workforce. Our ultimate aim is to foster higher levels of engagement and cultivate a high-performance culture throughout the organisation.

Measuring Wellbeing and taking action

Having an accurate and up-to-date picture of workplace wellbeing is crucial. At RUSH we use Peakon to measure Health and Wellbeing, as well as, Belonging. We collect employee feedback through regular monthly surveys and assessments. It enables us to gauge the overall wellbeing of our employees by asking specific questions related to health, work-life balance, stress levels, inclusion in the workplace and other relevant factors. 

These measurements give us real time data to make informed decisions, and proactively address issues before they become a problem. And by identifying trends and areas of concern, we develop targeted strategies and interventions to address those issues. The tool also allows us to track progress and assess the effectiveness of our wellbeing initiatives.

Partnerships 

Southern Cross

Partnering with a healthcare insurance provider like Southern Cross offers numerous benefits for us. It gives us confidence that our people will be looked after in the instance of serious illness or injury, and will allow them to proactively manage their health. It also leads to improved productivity and reduced absenteeism, which is beneficial for everyone. 

This partnership provides financial security for employees, mitigating the burden of healthcare expenses and fostering peace of mind. Moreover, it promotes a positive work environment, increasing employee engagement and loyalty. Overall, partnering with Southern Cross facilitates a healthier, more engaged workforce and supports a company's overall success.

IGNITE Aotearoa:

Recognising that some aspects of wellbeing require specialised support, RUSH has partnered with IGNITE Aotearoa, a wellbeing platform and provider. This collaboration enables us to offer our employees a range of specialist services that go beyond what we can provide internally. The platform includes wellbeing surveys and assessments, valuable resources and articles, engaging workshops, and most importantly, access to skilled counsellors and specialists when they are needed. This partnership further strengthens our commitment to fostering a workplace environment that promotes holistic wellbeing for everyone.

What makes our partnership with IGNITE truly remarkable is the mutual nature of our collaboration. Not only did we design and develop their product, we also use the platform. This partnership allows us to experience the benefits of the platform firsthand while continuing to enhance its capabilities to better serve our peoples needs (IGNITE case study). 

Work we still need to do: 

There is still much work to do. We are working through the transition to the new operating model, and there are pockets of the business where the bottleneck hasn’t yet eased. But we remain focused on constantly improving how we are supporting our people to not just live their lives, but thrive. 

Summary: TLDR

Prioritising employee wellbeing in the workplace is crucial for business success. When executed effectively, it results in happier, healthier, and more engaged employees, ultimately leading to enhanced productivity and performance.

The current workforce faces numerous challenges, with stress and burnout reaching unprecedented levels. To tackle these issues, we must adopt a comprehensive wellbeing approach that transcends superficial initiatives. At RUSH, we have implemented a robust wellbeing framework, fostered a culture of wellbeing, integrated wellbeing into organisational design, measured wellbeing outcomes, and forged strong partnerships with Southern Cross and IGNITE Aotearoa.

However, there is still significant work ahead in supporting employee wellbeing. We must continuously learn and adapt to the evolving needs of the workforce to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to thrive.