The Managers Guide to Workplace Well-being
The pandemic has shaken up traditional workplaces and our idea of what a workplace should be. Unfortunately, this combination of Covid, shrunken budgets and resources, and changing work environments has also taken a toll on our workplace well-being.
In a survey from 2020, only 42 per cent of New Zealand’s workforce rated their mental health as positive. Pre Covid, this number was sitting at 63 per cent. More recently, research has found employees in Australia and New Zealand experience higher rates of burnout, with 89 per cent of employees working late in 2021.
Well-being is more than health, it’s also tied to happiness, job satisfaction, productivity and performance, and relationships in and out of the office. It’s also more than physical health, encompassing mental well-being, relationship well-being, career well-being and financial well-being. All of these factors can influence the overall wellness of your employees and how they engage and perform at work—which can cost businesses dearly, particularly in terms of customer experience
Top well-being challenges
Mental health
With the uncertainty, worry and fear caused by the pandemic, it’s not so surprising to see this at the top of the list in 2021. In the 2021 NZ Workplace Diversity Survey, 80.7 per cent of workers rated mental health as the major challenge facing organisations today, up from 74 per cent in 2020. In Perceptive’s May 2021 survey of 1,000 New Zealanders, we found 46 per cent of Kiwis had experienced depression or anxiety in the workplace.
Stress
Coming in at number two and with 78.8 per cent of New Zealand employees rating it as a major well-being challenge is stress.[3] While stress is often included alongside mental health, in our minds it is a big enough issue to warrant its own category in this list. Moreover, in addition to contributing to depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and insomnia it can also have and range of cognitive, emotional and physical symptoms that can impact your employees’ ability to fully function.
Work-life balance
Poor work-life balance can lead to a range of emotional, mental and work performance issues including stress, depression, anxiety, burnout, becoming quickly angered and/or frustrated, low morale, low productivity and problems sleeping. Inadequate work-life balance is also more prevalent for women—who shoulder the bulk of caring and domestic work—along with parents, caregivers of sick, elderly or disabled relatives, women who care for both children and elderly or sick relatives.
Ways to build better work-life balance in your workplace:
Flexible hours
Flexible working arrangements
Parental and caregiver support
Encourage staff to use annual leave
Review workloads
Set boundaries with staff and clients—i.e. no calls/work-related messaging between certain hours.
Well-being is more than physical health, it also includes emotional and mental well-being, financial well-being, social well-being and career well-being. To help cover all aspects, here’s a list of ideas big and small to help improve your workplace well-being.
References:
https://www.customermonitor.com/the-managers-guide-to-workplace-well-being