JOHN HOLLON

Wellness in the Workplace: Fostering Wellbeing in a World of Remote Work
  
We all know that Covid brought many changes and challenges to the world of work -- and we're still adjusting to many of them. But it also brought some positive changes too, and one of the one best things it brought is a targeted focus on employee wellness and wellbeing that we've never seen before. 

It also brought a sharper focus on mental health that seems to be getting the most attention of all. 

A lot changed in March of 2020 as a state of emergency was declared due to the global Covid pandemic. What wasn't clear back then was how long the lockdown would continue or when the pandemic would finally end. Part of the fallout was that many companies had to downsize, causing many people to lose their jobs. 

This had a huge impact on the mental health of millions across the globe. In fact, a poll conducted by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), a non-profit organization that reports on U.S. national health issues, back in July 2020 -- before the worst of the pandemic took hold -- found that a majority of adults (53%) felt that stress and worry related to the pandemic has had a negative impact on their mental health and wellbeing. This included difficulty sleeping (36%), difficulty eating (32%), an increase in alcohol consumption or substance use (12%), and worsening chronic conditions (12%), all due to the stress brought on by the global lockdown. 
  
A greater focus by employers 
  
That sounds pretty bad, but out of the bad there was also some good -- a sharper focus on helping employees with mental health issues. 

The BBC detailed this recently in a story titled Is the Workplace Sigma Over Mental Health Struggles Changing? Here's the crux of the issue: 

"In the pandemic era, mental health has been tenuous for many. Major stressors have come in quick succession, with little reprieve: a deadly virus and economic upheaval that led to job and income loss. Prolonged isolation, increased bereavement, limited access to mental healthcare and seismic socio-political events have compounded myriad pressures; across the board people have experienced heightened levels of fear and anxiety. 

The effects are widespread: 51% of respondents to a seven-country survey published by the International Committee of the Red Cross in October 2020 said the pandemic had negatively impacted their mental health. Figures gathered by the US Census Bureau and published in April 2021 showed that adults with recent symptoms of an anxiety or depressive disorder increased from 36% in August 2020 to 42% in February 2021. Researchers are still collecting data on pandemic-related mental-health impacts as Covid-19 uncertainties and outcomes continue to affect our daily lives." 

Remote work has been hard on many people, and as BBC Worklife noted, "Remote work has been heralded as a solution to some of the problems of our fast-paced, pre-pandemic lifestyles. For many, it’s meant the opportunity to spend more time with their children, or use time that they would have previously wasted commuting pursuing more fulfilling hobbies. "  

That all sounds goods, but they added this cautionary note: "New research into remote work and wellbeing has shown mixed results – in Microsoft’s 2022 New Future of Work Report, researchers found that although remote work can improve job satisfaction, it can also lead to employees feeling “socially isolated, guilty and trying to overcompensate”. 

Recently Fuel50, an AI Talent Marketplace technology company, came to a similar conclusion about employee wellbeing, in their Capability Trends Research. They found that nearly half of all respondents (47%) felt their employees’ wellbeing had decreased because of remote working practices. This was slightly less than what the Kaiser Foundation research found, but it still represented the feelings of about half the respondents in both studies. 
  
Improving mental health for employees 
  
All of this raises an interesting question -- is there an answer to all this? What should employers and their organizations be doing to improve the state of wellbeing in their employees? 

Fuel50’s analysis of their research found that, "Leaders role modeling and advocating for the importance of workplace wellness is an effective way to get buy-in across the organization." They also suggested four (4) capabilities and specialist skills for leaders that might help to drive better workplace wellness:  

1. People Centricity -- Showing a genuine awareness and concern for the human experience. Valuing people instead of their organizational role or value to self. Being conscious of the feelings and opinions of others.
2. Wellness Agility -- Adopting the evolution of values, behaviors, and capabilities. Helping to enable the business to be more adaptive, creative, and resilient when dealing with complexity, uncertainty, and change - leading to improved wellbeing and better outcomes.
3. Employee Health and Wellbeing -- Encouraging employees to live healthier lifestyles. Educating employees on the various initiatives available to help them live a healthier lifestyle. Determining and communicating incentives to employees for participating in initiatives.
4. Employee Energy Risk Management -- Striking a good balance between the required levels of pressure and stress for an individual to perform optimally (and identifying triggers that push an employee beyond their stretched zone) to minimize the negative effects of pressure and stress on both the individual and the organization.

WellSteps, a wellness consulting firm formed by Dr. Steven Aldana and Dr. Troy Adams, has spent the last 40 years researching how to transform workplaces into healthy environments. Through their evidence-based interventions, they have highlighted the following workplace benefits associated with wellness programs 

• Wellness programs improve employee health behaviors and decrease absenteeism: "Wellness programs promote healthy behavioral changes such as healthy eating and exercising. WellSteps found that when employees change their diet, get active, and give up tobacco, it results in lower health risks, improvements in employee’s ability to control their stress, improved blood pressure, cholesterol, and glucose. These improved health behaviors are found to improve employees’ productivity and willingness to come to work."
• Wellness programs reduce health care costs: "A comprehensive review completed on the financial impact of workplace wellness programs, published in 2001, found that the savings from program participation were greater than the actual cost of the program. Researchers from Harvard recently published another summary of workplace wellness ROI research, which found that for every dollar spent on a wellness program, the organization saved $3.27 due to reduced health care costs."
• Wellness programs improve productivity: "WellSteps reported that the estimated cost associated with presenteeism (employee physically being at work but not working) due to poor employee health is at least two to three times greater than direct healthcare expenses4. Their report stated that smokers were 28% more likely to have high presenteeism than non-smokers, and employees who didn’t exercise were 50% more likely to have high presenteeism than employees who were regular exercisers."

Wellness and the challenges of the workplace 
 
Here's my take: It has taken a long time, but it's good to see that so many organizations have finally decided to take employee wellness and wellbeing seriously. 

There have always been companies that did a lot more than just offer discounts for the gym or brown-bag lunch sessions on how to eat healthier. In fact, one of the most useful offerings was the Employee Assistance Program -- benefits that some employers use to help their workers get access to short-term counseling or therapy services as well as provide some types of psychological assessment, when needed -- that was offered at a lot of companies and one of the newspapers I worked at. 

Not only did it give workers a place to go see a psychologist/psychiatrist when they needed a highly trained mental health professional, but it was an early warning system at my newspaper when a new and abusive top editor started bullying the staff. Yes, a 600 percent increase in EAP usage for a single month tends to get the attention of top leadership, and it generated multiple phone calls from the EAP provider to the newspaper's HR Vice President that finally got the publisher to take the issue seriously. 

The problem back then, as it still is now, is getting people to admit that they are having mental health issues -- and getting more organizations to offer help to employees dealing with these issues. 

Forbes recently described it like this: 

"Millions of Americans are returning to the office or workplace. But while many of the faces may look familiar, the people themselves have been profoundly changed. Close to 3 years into the pandemic, nearly everyone carries the stress and burden of COVID-19. Most have new expectations about remote vs. in-person work and have adopted a different work-life balance. Many have also experienced acute mental and behavioral health problems. 
How should employers respond? With empathy, flexibility, and support. And a recognition that returning to the workplace carries its own challenges." 

Amen to that. Yes, returning to the workplace DOES carry challenges, and for those employers really wanting people to return to the office, offering more benefits to help handle mental health issues will go a long way in getting workers to be willing to do that again. 

 
John Hollon is Managing Editor at Fuel50, the skills-based AI Talent Marketplace solution that delivers internal talent mobility and workforce reskilling.