HR Grapevine podcast: How do you define a healthy workplace?

Erik Niewiarowski

From hrgrapevine.com, it is the HR Grapevine podcast.

Hi there everyone, Erik Niewiarowski here. Thank you so much for joining me again this week. And this episode is the third instalment of our special ‘Workplace of now’ series presented along with our friends at Zelis. And in case you don’t know Zellis are the UK and Ireland’s leading provider of payroll and HR solutions. With over 50 years of heritage and industry experience. Zellis have been ahead of the curve throughout that time. So today in ‘Workplace of now’ we are going to define a healthy workplace. And to do that, I’m thrilled to be joined once again by Gethin Nadin. He is the Chief Innovation Officer at Zellis, as well as a best-selling author and an expert in all things employee wellbeing. So today Gethin is going to help me define what a healthy workplace is. What does that mean, from an individual, to teams to company culture? What does health mean and how has the pandemic impacted it? He’s also going to help me understand what the role HR leaders have to play in fostering employee and company health and what the markers are of a healthy organisation. Once again, it was a very insightful conversation with Gethin and here it is.

Gethin Nadin

Hi, my name is Gethin Nadin, Chief Innovation Officer at Zellis. I’m an award-winning psychologist, best-selling HR author, I advise the UK Government on approaches to wellbeing, I write for a lot of different HR magazines about employee experience/employee wellbeing – so hopefully fairly well-versed in what we’re going to talk about today.

Erik

Certainly. Thank you. So yeah, last time we we spoke, we talked about empathy in HR leadership. And now today we’re going to talk about a healthy workplace. And really, how can we go about defining what a healthy workplace is? So the first question for you is, from individuals to teams to entire company culture, what do we mean by health, and how has the pandemic affected this?

Gethin

So I think, wellbeing at work, its definition has been muddied throughout time, especially over the last couple of years. But if you really look at what makes people happy and healthy in life, and at work – and I’ve read probably in the region of 200 studies that have looked at this over the last decade or so, there’s a pretty common set of things that we need in our lives to be able to see our subjective wellbeing or happiness as high as it possibly can be.

And that incorporates, kind of, health/wellbeing, whatever term you want to use. And that is things like:

• I have a great social network, So I have strong social capital.
• I have people around me that I can rely on – there’s people that I can speak to when I when I really need help and when I need somebody just to kind of be a confidante
• I have a voice. And I have a platform for that voice – So people listen to me, listen to my opinions, and I feel like I have contributed.
• I feel included – not excluded from life or the workplace. So people celebrate my differences.
• If I’m a marginalised group, but I start to feel part part of that organisation. I get recognised for a job well done. Again, inside or outside of work, that kind of appreciation for the effort that we put into any relationship we’ve got in our lives.

And so, we really start to think about wellbeing. And that way, you start to think about; actually, it becomes far less about the way we talk about wellbeing at work, which is kind of the physical aspects and the mental health aspects. There’s all these other pullies that actually happen in the background. And when you start to understand things like mental health and that perspective, you also then start to understand that, I believe – based on the research that I’ve conducted, and I’ve read – that around half of our poor mental health is affected by lifestyle behaviour changes, which means the other half, we can’t impact at all. And so that means family upbringing, genetics, socio-economic reasons. So, lots of mental health is driven by people being held back by society and the way society is structured.

And so, when you really start to think about all of that coming together in the workplace, I think you’re looking at ‘How am I removing the barriers to somebody being as successful as possible in their team or their role?’

So, you start to really understand that, if people don’t get enough recognition, that starts to contribute to poor mental health. So, and many of us listening to this podcast will have experienced that. You go a really long time where you feel like ‘I’m putting this effort in, and I just really don’t think anyone cares about it.’

That starts to affect your sleep, or it starts to affect your physical wellbeing, which starts to make your overall wellbeing worse. So, there’s is careful balance that we need to achieve through all those things. And throughout the pandemic, we talked about it before, burnout was a very, very common theme of the pandemic. The way lots of employers have responded to that is probably in the incorrect way.

Look at some really big employers like Nike and LinkedIn and Bumble, they surveyed people and kind of said, their people said they were burnt out. So, lots of them gave paid time off to those employees, without really looking at the root causes of what caused that burnout in the first place. And then if you look at some evidence that was shared by Birkbeck University last year, the reasons why burnout happens were almost entirely down to organisational structure reasons. So:

• I don’t get enough recognition
• I don’t know what’s expected of me
• My workload is too much
• I’ve got unclear targets
• My manager doesn’t seem to care about or spend much time with me.

They’re all more likely to feel burnout than anything else in the workplace. But the things that help to solve workplace burnout, or stress, is down to things like social connections. So we know that the more social connections you have at work, the better you handle stress, the more people you’ve got to kind of offload to and feel like are on your side and fighting for you, the more you handle some of this stuff. And so I think when you start to then think about that kind of cultural wellbeing at work, or in the team in which you operate, you start to see all these things come together. Where actually, if I create a strong team that trust each other, that have high psychological safety, that care for each other, that enhances performance of the team. When I look at the individual’s needs, and make sure that they’re included, and not marginalised, and excluded from our organisation. So, we celebrate people’s differences. And we make sure there’s lots of diversity in our organisation, all of that starts to have a big impact on wellbeing. And so, it’s almost like wellbeing is kind of a series of about 20 different levers that you kind of need to be pulling back and forth all the time to get this right. And I think the way the pandemic affected this is: It affected how we define wellbeing because we started to surface some of those things like inequality, because we know the murder of Sarah Everard in the UK, the murder of George Floyd in the US, the pandemic, surfaced a lot of inequalities. But it also surfaced the fact that when we physically tore people apart and made people work at home or remotely, they started to lose some of those emotional connections with each other. Our wellbeing was harmed by being physically removed from people during the pandemic. And so again, we started to then appreciate that actually, wellbeing’s far more complex than just offering a mental health app or gym membership, right? All these things at play which, you kind of go back to the tribe and fire of what it was like to be a human hundreds of years ago, those needs and wants haven’t really changed. And so, I think, when we define wellbeing we are looking at things like purpose, belonging, connections with other people, recognition. That’s all really, really strong part of what wellbeing at work is.

Erik Niewiarowski

Yeah, and I know hindsight is always like a gift. But I remember a lot of our content on hrgrapevine.com, especially lockdowns one and two, were riding on these firms that were giving these employees a week off. And looking at the time, you know, I personally thought it was super innovative. But now looking back on it, it just seems like a quick Band-Aid sort of one-size-fits-all approach. Where now we’re seeing it more tailored, based on employee’s individual needs. Because you’re thinking as an employee, ‘Well, great, now I have a week off of work. But what am I going to do with the kids now? Now I feel the pressure to try and book somewhere to go.’ And so, a lot of times going to be coming back from that week off, you’re not as refreshed and re-energised as the employers would have thought so hindsight is always a gift, isn’t it?

Gethin Nadin

I think there’s – I have a lot of sympathy there. Because if you look at the analogy of the house was on fire, you had to put the fire out, you couldn’t be putting smoke alarms in, whilst this is on fire. And so, I think employers had to react to this very quick, wellbeing kind of stress,that was thrown or thrust upon the organisation. I think the response to that was, like, ‘Let’s go and buy some stuff because that’s gonna be the quickest way for us to do this is to give people some employee assistance programme, mental health apps, and all these kind of tools.’ And I think what’s happening now, as we hopefully are leaving the pandemic, you now have employers taking a breath and kind of saying ‘Okay, right. So let’s really start to look at what wellbeing works.‘ And so, I think we’re at the start of probably many years of companies now really defining what wellbeing means to them and their organisation and putting some things in place, whereas, for the last couple of years, we’ve just been reacting to an incredible amount of pressure that HR teams we’re under.

Erik Niewiarowski

Right, now is the time for us to be proactive. So with that in mind, what is the role that HR leaders have to play in fostering employee and company health?

Gethin Nadin

So, I think the role of HR – which is obviously very broad – but I think the role of HR has evolved quite significantly over the last couple of years. I think any HR team – any HR function – played a significant role in the pandemic and how companies have got through the pandemic, whether that was HR teams kind of scrambling around to reinterpret what country leaders were saying on a Sunday night, and then putting that into an email so employees understood what the rules were and what the ups and downs of the pandemic were – right the way through to payroll, who had to start making some, again, very quick decisions in adjusting people’s pay and then getting pretty used to some complex new pay arrangements that they hadn’t ever had to deal with before.

Through all of that, it’s obvious that HR played a key role, whilst at the same time balancing their own mental health whilst going through this pandemic, so a huge round of applause for anyone working in HR who got this far, because I think it was an incredibly challenging time, probably in the careers of most people working in HR. And I think what it’s also started to do is make the business realise that HR is so much more important to the organisation, than we thought it was, there were still many companies that were treating HR as just this kind of regulatory compliance; hire and fire, like the police of the organisation. I think that was also lots of employees’ attitudes as to what HR was there for.

When actually, no, there’s this group of people here that are social workers and healthcare professionals and tech experts and tech buyers, we started to see the role of them really come to the surface. And so, I think when you start to think about the role of HR leaders, in making sure we have that employee-company health, I think all we’ve seen really is an acceleration of something that was already happening.

When I wrote my book in 2016, my first book, I talked about how I felt like HR would become almost like the maître’d of the organisation, they’d go up to each team, and tap you on the shoulder and be like

“Erik, have you got everything you need? Do you need more training? What can I do for you? Can I take some hours away from you? Do you need more pay? Like, what do you need to be able to kind of perform your best?”

I think that’s what we’re going to start to see HR continue to evolve into, as technology has allowed us to reduce a lot of that admin. So that’s becoming less and less. And also, HR teams are more frequently now on the board of companies. So, they have a seat at the table to talk about, actually, the people have got a voice.

So when a company is making a decision, you’ve got somebody saying,

‘Wait, how’s this affecting our people? And have we thought about how this is going to affect our people’?

So, when you think about organisational change, and we talked in the last episode about empathy, of somebody saying,

‘Wait, how is this affecting our people? And are we doing the right by our people when we make this decision?’

And I think the more that starts to happen, the more we start to create organisations that people want to go and work in, because they feel like there is somebody on the board who’s not just focused on profit, and productivity, I feel like there’s somebody there who’s fighting for me and the rights of the individual employee. And I think that’s a really exciting place for HR to be in, because I think the decisions many HR people made through the pandemic and will continue to make over the next couple of years, are having a significant impact on our societies. And you just think about how, you know, a guy gets murdered by a police officer in America, and British HR teams are issuing statements, there are people saying,

‘Not on my watch, you are black, and you’re included, and I celebrate you, and we will not have anything like that in my company.’

And then you have HR teams who are kind of looking at the customer base they work with and going back to their business and saying, you know, you’re working with some companies here that our employees aren’t happy that you’re working with. And so that employee activism and voice has been celebrated and championed by HR. And so I think they’ll continue to have a very key role in wellbeing. I think wellbeing will continue to be owned and has to be owned by everyone in the organisation. I think everyone has to understand the part they’re playing in wellbeing. Each of us employees have a part to play in that in the wellbeing of our colleagues and our teams. But I think HR will always have that kind of core position, to own and run wellbeing. And I think, I think that’s where it should be. I think for a long time, HR has actually been focused on people and most HR people I know – most HR directors I know – have a real need and want and desire to do right by people and a very people-oriented. And that’s why they got into HR. So, I think they will continue to have a critical role. And I think they proved during the pandemic how valuable they are.

Erik

Yeah, and I love how in certainly we can back that up with some of our reporting, the fact that you have HR professionals getting those director-level jobs seats on the board, it’s so important to have an advocate for the employee with that sort of visibility, to really impact and, in a lot of cases, improve the business strategy.

Gethin

I think there’s been an interesting change with that HR role as well, over the years, where there were HR people that I’ve met in the past that came from operational roles, and then given the HR Director job with no qualifications, training or experience in people management, or leadership or anything. And then you have, the trouble that Revolut went through years ago, and they started to have some really big cultural problems. And the CEO made a statement that basically said “I should have hired the HR person before I hired a finance person”. And I think that is now starting to get through, and you’re starting to get – there used to be this old trope that you don’t really need an HR person until you get to 100 people or more. And I just don’t think that’s true anymore. You’ve got start-ups that are basically understanding the role of HR, not just in the success of the organisation, but the health of that organisation is now so important, that ‘ Actually should an HR person be one of my first hires?’ And I’m excited to see so many new start-ups understand that and very early on saying “Right, we need HR first, because if we don’t get a lot of this stuff right as we build it from the ground up, we will never get it right.” And that’s been great to see.

Erik

Yeah, I’m just thinking to my own personal history having been involved, in a couple of start-ups, really, really wishing they had an HR team. Personally, I know the CEO would disagree, but definitely, it certainly would help.

So, kind of wrap up these our thoughts here on the healthy workplace, in your opinion, or from your data and your experience, what are the markers of a healthy organisation?

Gethin

This has evolved quite a lot over time. I think with a lot of this stuff, we can just think back to our own experiences at work and start to understand ‘When was I happy at work? And when did I feel like I was working for an organisation that really got this stuff?’ And it’s some of the stuff I’ve already talked about, when I felt like I was included, anyone who’s marginalised will tell you that feeling included in the organisation is an incredibly important part. And we can now track diversity and inclusion to a significant number of different markers of organisational success, like profit and productivity. So, making sure people are included. So, it’s almost like, if you want to get wellbeing right, you’ve got to get a couple of other things right as well. So, communication needs to be regular, clear and transparent. Diverse inclusion needs to be celebrated and that needs a clear strategy attached to it.

And then you start to see some of the things that you need for wellbeing fall into place, you create an environment where people have that voice. You feel that people are recognised for the effort that they put in. You start to make sure that, where possible, you’re making sure that work is a positive force in people’s lives. So, you’re looking at things like living wage, and abolishing zero hour contracts and things like that, because the data is starting to tell us that those cause problems for people. So, although that’s not the be all and end all there, again, this list of things that the data is telling us if you do that, as an employer, your people are more likely to struggle. We can start to understand that actually ‘what things do I have in place to make sure that people are going to thrive and survive in the business?’ And so, you then start to look at HR policy and making sure that again, we talked about this before by empathising with people, but people look at stuff like flexible working, the data tells us flexible working is incredibly good for people’s mental health, giving people autonomy and control over their hours, and where and when they work from, has a really big impact on their health. And so, I think the healthy organisation courts the opinions of their people regularly and acts on what they tell them.

I think it celebrates and includes people and does everything it can to make sure it doesn’t exclude people. It communicates regularly and honestly, with its people as much as possible. It celebrates and builds community so that people feel like they’re part of something and that they build those all-important emotional connections. And I think when you start to get those things in place, you start to create an organisation and a culture that’s really celebrating and built around wellbeing. I think that’s again, a really special place to be, I think when you get some of those things right – and lots of those things don’t necessarily mean you need to be going out and buying lots of stuff and spending money on cultural and structural changes that almost any organisation can make.

Erik

So, in that the way you explain it there to me now, I’m personally envisioning wellbeing as sort as the sum of all of those products that you mentioned before – the diversity and inclusion, all of that. So that’s great. Well, Gethin Nadin, thank you so much for helping us break down a healthy workplace. We really appreciate it.

Gethin

Thank you for having me.

Erik

Well, once again, I just like to thank Gethin Nadin, Chief Innovation Officer at Zellis, for taking the time to help me unpack and define what a healthy workplace is. It was a very insightful conversation and I hope to those listening, you were able to come away with some key takeaways on how to define what a healthy organisation is and how HR can play a role in fostering employee and company health. That’s it for this week, we will be back soon with another instalment of the ‘Workplace of now’ series, presented along with our partners at Zellis.