JULIE MARKER: Improving wellbeing at work is better for staff and business
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Caithness Community by Julie Marker
Stress and anxiety are real and they are taking a toll on our health. The shift in working norms since the lockdowns has meant that many people have enjoyed more flexible patterns of working.
Working from home has helped us to focus for longer, attend more meetings, and get involved with more projects. Hybrid working has provided more flexibility and the best of both worlds; the social side of work and being in the workplace allows for better collaborative working.
But, we are also seeing more absenteeism, quiet quitting and burnout than ever before. So, what is going wrong?
One of the things I hear often is that although workers have adapted to a new way of working, there are pressures to do more and more.
Certainly, in the charity sector, increased demand for services has increased pressures on staff and teams. Businesses have different pressures, cost cutting and the need to continue producing goods and services with smaller margins is extremely stressful.
Whatever the cause, excessive stress, over a long period of time impairs our decision making and productivity, and relationships can become strained.
When we are worried about our health, we go for a health check to the professional who can best guide us. The same is true for charities and businesses. A health check from someone who is experienced but impartial will help you to identify the root cause of the problems. Only once the issue is identified can the rectification process begin.
Stress is a useful marker of a deeper problem, ignore it at your peril! Not addressing prolonged stress is harmful to our heath.
There are lots of things we can do but it requires a plan. However, if we merely tell someone to relax, do yoga, go for a walk or concentrate on their breathing without tackling the root cause, we are putting a sticking plaster onto a dirty, open wound. The same is true in the workplace, burying our heads in the sand doesn’t improve anything.
Developing and implementing a workplace wellbeing strategy will save so much time and money. Recruitment is already a huge challenge that employers are trying to overcome. It is interesting to note that over 50 per cent of millennials have seriously considered moving jobs in favour of a lower stress environment.
Since work is a big part of our lives, investing in all that creates a healthy workplace culture will produce a healthy return on investment, companies with an effective wellbeing strategy experience 28 per cent lower absenteeism.
It is not enough to have a "once in-a-blue-moon team building day" and think that is going to cut it. Neither is having a workplace policy stuck in a draw that no one ever sees.
Wellbeing in the workplace is an ongoing commitment, the processes that flow from that commitment should be tangible. This doesn’t "just happen". In the same way, if you have a health problem, you need a diagnosis and a course of action.
In the workplace, leaders will feel the pressures from a "sick" workforce. Taking a health check is a great starting point to reducing stress, improving health, productivity and creativity.
- Julie Marker is HERE For Caithness project lead and chair of Caithness Cares, part of Caithness Voluntary Group.
