Consistency in approach: how organisational wellbeing often fails this test

In my video ‘Mind the Gap’ I discussed the need for a ‘whole organisation’ approach to health, mental health and wellbeing. What I see often is that organisations have good wellbeing strategies but that these are in isolation to the how the rest of organisation’s policies and processes run. They sit as a policy on a company intranet, but are not linked into the culture, realpolitik or other ways that ‘business as usual’ is conducted.

At best, this can cause dissonance or inconsistency. At worst it can mean that a good intentioned approach to wellbeing is contradicted by other HR policies or processes. As an example, in my last video I talked about my friend, who had disclosed to her employer that she was bipolar, but was no longer getting sick pay. Their reasoning was that  she had taken over the amount she was entitled to by the organisational absence policy. 

It got worse as when she became pregnant, as she also didn’t qualify for enhanced maternity pay due to her absences. So, what you have here is someone with a long term, chronic illness (but a great performer otherwise) who had disclosed to her employer (who was making great waves about their work in mental health), taking extended absences (due to their illness) but not getting any financial support for either her illness or her pregnancy... A huge contradiction in terms. And not a great look for wellbeing or mental health. Or diversity. 

A more subtle way that this dissonance plays out is through performance management. An organisation talks a lot about how much they care about wellbeing and mental health, but then at year end rewards highly the people that have hit their sales or numerical targets (but not looked after their own or others health and wellbeing) over the people who may have missed their targets but have had a healthier and mentally healthier approach. What you measure and reward drives behaviour - so this really matters. 

To approach wellbeing more consistently, I suggest organisations spend some time thinking about the following:

1.     What does your organisation want to be known for when it comes to wellbeing? – As you write and implement your wellbeing strategy think about what you want to be known for. Across the whole organisation. Having an authentic and consistent approach means being honest about what you want to become and what changes you are prepared to make. 

2.     Do a strategic review of all your other policies and processes – as part of implementing your health and wellbeing policy, you need to go through all your other policies with the lens of health and mental health. Add in health and mental health where possible and ensure there are no contradictions. 

3.     Role modelling – Think about what behaviours are rewarded and accepted in the organisational culture. There is no point launching a health and mental health strategy with great fanfare if senior leaders are working all hours and expecting everyone else to too. Whatever is in your strategy needs to be role modelled by all layers of the organisation. 

4.     Performance Management – I’ll be covering this is more detail later in the year, but time needs to be spent looking at how you measure people, what you measure them on and how this fits into your organisational approach to health, mental health and wellbeing. Both because this drives behaviour but also because performance management is where your illnesses and mental illnesses are likely to show up. 

5.     Humanity trumps process - The organisations that look after their people the best are the ones that ensure that the person and their situation, trumps the process they are in. This means having a human approach to resolving issues, being prepared to override policy and process to settle problems and remaining flexible and thoughtful. 

To summarize, I’m not saying that organisations aren’t doing great work in health, mental health and wellbeing. Many are. However, many fail to make their approach to this systemic or to really change the culture of the place or how people behave. To ensure integrity, authenticity and consistency an organisation needs to ‘mind the gap’ between their wellbeing policy and the way everything else is done.