Podcast | How To Fix Workplace Wellbeing

How can organisations get out of their own way when it comes to wellbeing?

And what can employees do to set good habits and strong boundaries?

Ryan Hopkins, Author of 52 Weeks Of Wellbeing and Chief Impact Officer at JAAQ joins us to discuss it all.

From why work-life balance is nonsense to working on your rest ethic, using the Definite Yes, and much more.

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Timestamps

0:00 Into to Ryan and the episode.
2:09 Are companies hindering their own wellbeing initiatives?
9:56 Is work-life balance nonsense?
16:04 Setting boundaries and support managers.
21:06 You need to audit your meetings.
25:18 Dealing with being ‘always online’.
29:30 The Definitive Yes.
32:30 Work on your rest ethic.
45:21 High-leverage, cornerstone habits.
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Five takeaways on fixing workplace wellbeing

“Wellbeing is no small thing, but made up of small things. If you improve by 1% every day for a year, you're 3,778% percent better at the end of the year with compound interest.” - Ryan Hopkins. 
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1. Wellbeing initiatives only work if we create space for them to work.

“Well meaning solutions, platforms, ideas and plans can actually stress us out further unless we create space.”

“Because if someone doesn't have five minutes to themselves, these well-meaning solutions will not and do not work.”

This is why the simple usage data of a wellbeing initiative or anecdotal feedback isn’t enough, it doesn’t give us enough context around people who simply didn’t have space or bandwidth to engage with it.

“You've got to look one level below the utilisation or the subjective score on how effective it is and actually look at what are the underlying things stopping people from getting involved or stopping them from continuing with these initiatives.”
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2. Work-life balance is nonsense! We need better boundaries instead.

“You say, work life balance, when there is no balance between the two. First, you're putting work first and life's coming second, which is nonsense unto itself. 

“If we're going to do it, life needs to come first, and work is actually one element.”

Without boundaries, it’s easier for work to encroach into your personal life because you’re leaving it to chance. 

“So for me, it isn't about leaving it to balance or to chance. It's about boundaries. And when we implement boundaries and say, well, this is what we expect here.

“We get clear on what the outcomes are at work, you work in a way that suits you, and you can expect not to be contacted outside of hours.”
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3. Why we should work on our rest ethic.

“We valorise people who sit at their desk all day and seem to be productive. But I know plenty of people who spend a very long time at work who are absolutely useless. 

“And I know loads of people who work flexibly and potentially work less. But are ultimately super productive.

“So I say now, judge me on what I produce, the positive effect I have on people around me, and not how long I sit here doing it. Because it's about outcomes.”

So, in the same way we glamourise people who worked all night to get something done.

We should celebrate people who deliver great outcomes but also are able to take time for themselves, rest more, and improve their wellbeing.
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4. Audit your meetings, your calendar and people will thank you.

“If you have six meetings per day, and you cut each one to finish five or 10 minutes early, you'll save 4.8 work weeks worth of effort this year.

“It’s these little things that matter. Wellbeing is no small thing, but it's made up of small things. And it's the little things that we focus on every single day that contribute to a happy, joyous, fulfilled, productive life.”

Go to you calendar and ask yourself questions like:

• Does this meeting have clear objectives, agenda, outcomes etc.?
• Am I a contributor, SME or approver/decision maker?
• Is my role in the meeting clear?

This context will help you take the right action, like reducing the cadence, declining or removing the meeting, or changing the structure and attendees.
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5. Go beyond the surface level to solve real problems.

“Often we're dealing with surface issues. People are feeling stress, so we put on a stress webinar, as opposed to looking at what is causing the underlying stress."

But what we should be doing is looking at where their feedback meets data to establish the root cause.

“That key thing is the measurement and insight. If you do that, it will unlock the buy-in from the C-Suite, from everyone else and make it a priority inside the business.

“Yeah, it’s difficult to do, but if that's done and the reporting is regular, we can treat it like a discipline with as much respect as any other part of the business. 

“Then the dominoes will fall, I promise you, because when they see how much money they're losing from people walking out the door due to stress and other preventable issues, it will then get addressed.”