Workplace culture pillar:
Wellbeing
What is a ‘Wellbeing’ workplace culture and why is it important?
A Wellbeing workplace culture is about creating an environment that cultivates a nurturing community, psychological safety, resilience and adaptability. It requires asking hard questions about how an organisation and its leaders could be directly or indirectly harming the wellbeing of its people, and being open to changing the behaviours, structures, values and environment to address these issues.
Wellbeing is the foundation of sustainable high performance, when organisations treat employees well, the benefits extend beyond the individual to both team and business-wide productivity.
Nurturing a culture of wellbeing is not just about setting up wellness initiatives, celebrating awareness days and purchasing a new, shiny health app. It requires a holistic, sustainable approach that supports the mental, emotional, financial and social needs of workers.
Workplace culture has an unquestionable impact on employee wellbeing. The everyday behaviours, interactions, decisions and protocols forming an organisation’s culture contribute to how employees feel at work – whether that is energised and supported, or burnt out and demotivated.
Reflective questions
To help your organisation work towards a healthy culture of wellbeing, consider some of the following questions:
- What are you doing to take care of the numerous wellbeing needs of your employees, including mental, emotional, financial, digital and social needs?
- When challenging times arise for the organisation, how do you adapt to support the wellbeing of your people?
- What current behaviours, structures and practices are having a detrimental impact on employee wellbeing? What one small step can you take towards addressing these harms?
- Looking beyond a single department, how are different teams and functions working collaboratively to sustain or improve employee wellbeing?
Resource list
PODCAST: Working on Wellbeing Podcast by host Rachel Fellowes and guests
REPORT: HR Mental Wellbeing Report, published by Ultimate Resilience
ARTICLE: If you’re talking about wellbeing, you’re having the wrong conversation by Alys O’Neil of United Culture
BOOK: A Work In Progress: Unlocking Wellbeing to Create More Sustainable and Resilient Organisations by Gethin Nadin, Award-winning Psychologist, Bestselling HR Author and Employee Wellbeing Expert
BOOK: The Conscious Effect: 50 Lessons for Better Organizational Wellbeing by Natasha Wallace, Founder and CEO of The Conscious Leadership Company
