The Wellbeing Hour #35 Stop wellbeing washing, start walking the talk 

Text transcript

Amy: So welcome everybody to the Wellbeing Hour with me, Amy McDonald,

Angus: and me, Angus Robinson. We’ll introduce you to our guests in a few moments. We have Karen Anne Duffy, Denis Fischbacher-Smith and Julie Nerney. As you settle in, a heads up, we are recording this so you will be able to watch it, listen to it, share it later. Please do follow us on those podcast channels, we do appreciate it and it always makes a difference.

At Headtorch, we work with companies and organisations to create a Mentally Healthy Culture. The Wellbeing Hour is an important extension of our work. I’ll be back later and we’ll field some of your questions to our guests. Amy.

Amy: And what guests we have. We are so excited today to be hosting our first panel event here on the Wellbeing Hour, and there’s lots to talk about, as I’m sure you’re aware, under the heading of Stop Wellbeing Washing, Start Walking the Talk, and for those of you joining us live in the chat, you will see a question that we’re inviting you to respond to.

And our key question today is this, what do you do to call out wellbeing washing in your organisation? So do please add your responses to the chat and any other comments, questions, and Angus and I will be dipping into those in due course, together with our guests. Panel members then, thank you so much for joining us today.

And we have for you today, folks, Karen Anne Duffy, who is the HSE and sustainability manager with Volvo Construction Equipment and Chair of their Global Mental Health Community of, the whole of the Volvo Group. On top of all her responsibilities last year, Karen Anne simultaneously completed and was awarded a first class honours in business management.

Her career in health and safety is driven by her interest in people and their stories. We have Professor Denis Fischbacher Smith, Research Chair in Risk and Resilience at the University of Glasgow and formerly the Deputy Head of the Business School there. Denis is a graduate of no fewer than seven universities, a Chartered Fellow of the CIPD amongst many other professional bodies.

He’s been a non exec director. He’s been seconded to the police for work around resilience and counter terrorism, and he’s an expert advisor on some high profile cases. We have also on our panel today, Julie Nerney, who is a serial entrepreneur, transformation leader and non executive director at the UK Supreme Court.

Julie is a fellow of the Institute of Directors and has taken the lead in some complex change programs. Amongst many other accolades, she’s a guest lecturer at the Oxford Saïd Business School for the Global Leadership Development Programme, and she is the author of not one, but two business books. So pleased to have you with us here today.

Let’s kick off with a bit of show and tell. Karen and Anne, share your mystery object and tell us three things that it says about you.

Karen Anne: Thanks, Amy. My mystery object is a book. So for those of you who have seen me working from home, I’ve got a wall of these behind me. It says I’m an introvert at heart really, so after a full week of being on at work or a big social event, I just like to recharge with a book. It’s my favourite thing to do.

I read mainly sci fi, fantasy with a little bit of crime thrown in, so it’s all about escapism for me and just being surrounded by creativity. And the most important thing it says about me is that I just really, really wish that dragons were real, and existed in the world.

Amy: Me too. Thank you, Karen Anne. Denis, show and tell. What’s your mystery object and what does it say about you?

Denis: This is a Daruma, which is a Japanese doll for want of a better label. You’ll very often see them in Japanese companies with one of the eyes coloured in. The Daruma was a monk who basically spent his life in a cave contemplating the universe until his arms and legs fell off. Well, given that I started life in health and safety at work, it was of course intriguing for me, so that’s one of the issues that I think it speaks to. And the other two really relate to. the notion of persistence that, we have to constantly try and self improve, but the third thing is really about self reflection. That one of the things that the Daruma signifies is that you’re always learning, you’re always trying to improve, you’re constantly trying to, address your shortcomings, even though you might never achieve that and colour the other eye in.

Amy: Fantastic. Lots of self reflection. And I love that, that it actually looks quite similar to you as well, Denis.

Denis: Thank you. Thank It’s a more acceptable version of me, really.

Amy: Wonderful. Julie, do introduce yourself with your mystery object.

Julie: My mystery object is an Olympic torch from the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, which I was given by my boss having worked on the event. And for me, it says three things. It talks to purpose, determination and balance. So the whole purpose of the games was to inspire a generation to be active and look after their wellbeing,

but actually, it had such a common purpose and it taught me about how important it is to have purpose in what you do in your work, and in organizations to have really clear purpose about what they’re there to do. In terms of determination, it’s proof of the art of the possible. So I joined with 11 months to go, we did four years worth of work in 11 months. It chimes with my own personal determination, but that links to the third point, which is balance. It’s probably the piece of work I’m most proud of in my career, but I never want to work like that again. Four years work in 11 months is completely unsustainable and not good for your mental health or wellbeing.

it shows that it’s possible in pursuit of short, big, hairy, audacious goals, but it’s really not good for your wellbeing overall.

Amy: Short, big, hairy, audacious goals, what a great sentence. I love the fact also that the three objects that you have all brought have in some way, brought around that self-reflection, so that you’re allowing yourself that time to self-reflect when you’re immersed in your books, Karen Anne you’re, having all that holistic thinking Denis, and, having had that experience, Julie, it’s made you self-reflect and so important that organizations as a whole of course, are

self reflecting, isn’t it? So, let’s kick on then with some questions around stopping wellbeing washing. first of all, let’s start you, Julie. What would you say wellbeing washing is, and why is it happening?

Julie: I think in the world of work, there’s always a new thing, isn’t there, and there’s a zeitgeist? And I’m going to compare it with the advent of corporate social responsibility and the requirements to report on that. Having a strong employee value proposition, something that attracts people to your organization is super important, but there’s a difference between ones that are genuine and founded and grounded and those which are just show. So lots of people got caught out with CSR reporting, saying nice words in their annual reports, but actually there was no substance behind it. And it soon started to unravel and people got a competitive advantage or a differentiation in the marketplace by being genuine around some of these things, and I think it’s the same with wellbeing. People say they look after their people, they have a wellbeing offer as part of their employee value proposition. It’s all branded and it’s beautiful, but then the first time somebody actually needs to access that support, whether it’s from an individual manager and the way that they show up and look after their people, or whether it’s through services that are provided as part of that proposition, if they find it not to be there, then it’s a bit like the emperor’s new clothes. And unfortunately, you only find that out when you come to need it, and so for me, wellbeing washing is about trying to make yourself more attractive as an employer and attract people into an organisation and tell a story about who you are, when actually that might not really be true.

Amy: Yeah, thanks, Julie. And the same question for you then, Denis. what would you say, what can you add to that in terms of what’s wellbeing washing to you and why is it happening?

Denis: I think sometimes it’s also tied into cognitive dissonance that people within the organisation think they’re doing a really good job, but without actually asking the people who they manage, whether they are doing a good job or not, and therefore, you get this dislocation between what people perceive as being the dominant culture in the organization and what is the actual culture that’s experienced by people.

I also sometimes think as I get older, there’s a generational thing as well, but I see it in academics where they look at younger academics and say, we had to do X, Y, and Z. Well, the reality is we didn’t. Their job is much more difficult than ours was at the same age and stage of career. And we sometimes forget what it was like to be a new entrant into the organization and what it was like to, to have to try and meet ever changing goals.

And sometimes I think it’s having that empathy with, with people below and sadly, I would agree with Julie that a lot of it is a rhetoric On top of what is happening in the organization that, we don’t, we often don’t go looking to find the real answer as to whether we’re addressing wellbeing or not.

I

Amy: yeah. Not looking for the actual root cause. what would you add into that mix there, Karen Anne? What, what does wellbeing washing mean for you?

Karen Anne: Yeah, I think it’s already been said, but it’s style over substance, really. And if I put my sustainability hat on, it’s just the same as greenwashing. So companies that will throw a bunch of money at the climate problem to say that they are carbon neutral without actually addressing the root cause and doing anything for their emissions, wellbeing washing is the same. They’ll throw up a wall of employee perks and hide behind that, so gym memberships or fruit at lunchtime and things like that, but they won’t actually do anything to address the root cause of what’s making people ill as a result of work. And it’s easy to do that, that’s probably why it’s happening. It’s easy. It makes a nice Instagram story for your social medias. It puts a nice public front on an organization, but we’re not actually changing anything for the employees that are working there day to day.

Amy: Yeah, so it’s for ease that organisations are, putting things in terms of surface. It looks good, but, yeah, as you’re all saying, it needs that substance, doesn’t it? In three words, if you can, in three words, starting with you, Denis, what do you notice in an organisation, that is wellbeing washing?

 

Denis: I think I’m going to quote someone who taught me, Jim Reeves. Jim was a psychologist, and he argued that there were source types in organizations and they were awareness, commitment, and competence. And I think, in many cases, when wellbeing washing takes place, those three elements are deficient.

There isn’t the awareness as to what the root causes of, of wellbeing might be. There isn’t the commitment to actually change the culture in a fundamental way to address it. And there isn’t the competence either. I teach in a business school, if I look at the curricula of a lot of MBA degrees, they don’t address mental health in the workplace. They don’t really address the fact that as a manager, you can create conditions that can make your colleagues ill.

To address the issues, I think we’ve got to have an ongoing process of continuous professional development as managers, to make certain that we develop that awareness, commitment and competence in order to overcome the problems of wellbeing washing.

Amy: Yeah, wow, fantastic. a lot more than three words there, but good explanation of those three words. Karen

Denis: Sorry, I’m from Liverpool, I can’t help it.

Amy: It’s all great stuff. Karen Anne, three, what are your three words?

Karen Anne: Perks, that’s what you see. You’ll see disengagement and you’ll see apathy, I would say.

Amy: How does apathy show up?

Karen Anne: Probably, like, presenteeism, people doing the bare minimum, to get by,not going above and beyond, just disconnecting from the people around about you. If you don’t have a culture where you can speak openly about mental health or talk about what’s bothering you, why would you bother talking, about it at all?

So you just close off and become more isolated.

Amy: Thanks, Karen. And Julie, what are your three words?

Julie: For individuals, I think, it’s similar to, to Karen Anne. I think you get disenfranchisement. People disconnect with the psychological contract with the organisation, which then means they disengage and then they become demotivated, and so you’re losing the horsepower that comes from having the people in your organisations, and people feel disillusioned with something that they’ve been promised that just isn’t the real deal anymore.

Amy: What’s the impact then of wellbeing washing? What’s the real impact on individuals? Karen Anne, let’s start with you on this question.

Karen Anne: So this might be a bit of a spoiler, but mental health concerns don’t go away if you ignore them, if anything, you only get worse. so if an individual suspects that their employer is wellbeing washing, they’re not going to speak up and ask for help. They’re not going to open up, so that in turn is going to lead to higher levels of stress and burnout.

They might be more inclined to take work home, to be able to keep up with what’s expected of them at work, causing them to disconnect from family, not having enough downtime, not having that recovery time. so it just it erodes the trust in the organization, and if your employees don’t trust you, then you don’t have a really good business at that point. You’ll have undervalued employees who feel unseen, disengaged, and ultimately will either go off sick or they’ll leave.

Amy: And Julie, what’s your thoughts on that? What’s the impact on individuals?

Julie: It’s interesting for me Amy, because we talk about the impact on individuals and organisation like they’re separate things. Everybody gets very excited about organisations, their structures, their processes, what an organisation is. An organisation is just a collection of people. If your people didn’t come to work again tomorrow, there is no organisation.

So when you talk about the impact on individuals, there’s the personal impact about how they feel, all the stuff that Karen Anne has said about their commitment or otherwise to their workplace, and how they show up and how they perform, and their health  and wellbeing generally. But there’s also a much wider impact there for an organisational performance, because  every person is a cog in that wheel, and every cog that stops turning you start to erode organizational performance.

And so it’s interesting to me when people talk about organizational performance and individual performance, it’s the same thing. It’s always about the people. So if you have any impact on individuals, then you’re eroding the value in your business, whether you’re making money for shareholders or whether you’re doing something that has an impact on society, because that, that those individuals will just disengage and they’ll stop performing.

They’ll stop being the best version of themselves. And that’s the only responsibility you have as a leader. Create an environment that allows people to be the best version of themselves.

Amy: Wonderful, and Denis, what are your thoughts?

Denis: Well, I think it’s a combination of the two. For me, if a manager doesn’t do what he or she says the organization is espousing, it violates the moral code of the individual. And the minute you violate that moral code, you do Turn that person from being a positive, colleague to being one that is potentially quite damaging.

And certainly the insider threat literature would point to that, that people become threats to the organization simply because they’ve had their moral code violated by managerial behaviors.

Amy: What do you mean by threat to the organization? Can you give more of an example

Denis: around that? Well, of course, in the U. S. it’s been manifested in violent acts. So the whole notion of going postal which is a term used within that literature, points to the fact that people who have become, disgruntled at work can actually, eventually cause harm to the organization.

It can be things as low level as sabotage you know, I’m not going to do the job to the best of my ability, therefore, I’m degrading the performance of the organization. Or an individual has bullied me at work. and I’m, you know, I’ll get to a point where I won’t take it anymore. And you see a lot of evidence of well performing, good employees being turned into quite hostile people to the organization. And then they get blamed for that, but the reality is that, the organization has contributed to that process. It’s so easy to blame the individual without actually stepping back and saying, what did we do to contribute to this? 

Amy: Or of course, there’s the other side as well, isn’t there, where actually you’ve got a fantastic, individual in your team, but because those values aren’t met,one thing’s being espoused, but it’s not actually happening, they leave. So you lose all that talent because they’re like, I’m not standing for this.

I’m out of here. so that, that can be another. impact, right?

Denis: And then there’s the issue of suicide at work. People are pushed to the point where they can no longer, cope. And rather than see it purely and simply in terms of, of them and their characteristics and their problems, we need to reflect on what on earth did we do to not only to contribute to that, but to actually pick up on some of the early warning signs.

And I know that I’ve experienced that sadly with a former colleague who committed suicide. And a lot of us felt, you know, why didn’t we pick up on these early warnings? And if we did, you know, what would we have done? And, for me, that was a real game changer in terms of my understanding of some of the challenges that we face managerially around managing mental health at work.

I didn’t manage the individual. He was a colleague in that sense.

Amy: It is interesting, isn’t it? Because we find that sometimes organizations find it hard just to get on the journey in terms of mental health in the workplace. So broaching the subject of suicide is, that’s a whole other, that’s a whole other level. and, sadly, in organizations where there has been suicide, there’s still that reluctance to start the process and yet they’ll also say we’re doing all these shiny things. Any thoughts on that, Karen Anne?

Karen Anne: Yeah, think that’s a really valid point. And, it’s like we said at the start, it’s the easy way out.  If you want to really actively work at improving, employee wellbeing, you have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable because the first time you do survey or start asking the questions, you probably won’t like the answers that you get back.

And if you’re not prepared to then follow up on that, then there’s really no point in starting the process. it’s not easy, it’s not glamorous. It’s not going to make good social media content,  but it’s what’s going to drive real change in the organization and you need to put the hours in.

Amy: As you said, yeah. So what does wellbeing, washing mean in real terms to an organization? like the opportunity cost, we’ll start with you, Julie, on this one, but, First of all, I just want to give an example, one of our senior advisors is a former divisional commander of Police Scotland, and he made it his mission, to make workplace wellbeing a sort of golden thread that ran through the organization.

And as a direct result of all the, work that they put in to create a mentally healthy culture, in real terms, it meant they had 40 more cops on the beat. So that’s a lot of absenteeism has been reduced, if you like, people feeling more happy, able, healthy, motivated, to come to work. Julie, what are your thoughts in terms of the real opportunity cost, if you like.

Julie: Well, and it links back to the point I made earlier about, an organisation’s performance is vested in its people. For people to perform at their best, they need to feel safe, and I mean safe in the broadest sense, not just in a technical sense. They need to feel like they’re in an environment where they can thrive, where they can they are supported in what they do, and if you have that, you get the best out of people because you create a level of safety, which means they will ask for help.

They will talk about things where they’ve got challenges. To Denis’s point, you’ll be able to spot early warning signs, nip things in the bud, and with your example there, they’ll therefore reduce absenteeism, put support in place early. Prevention is always better than cure right? So you spot those signs earlier and you have a more productive, and productive I mean in the broadest sense, happy, healthy, productive workforce.

And so the cost of not doing this is the corollary and if I just pick up on the points that Denis and Karen Anne made earlier, It is your duty of care as an organisation to do this for your employees, right? It is your obligation, your responsibility. And when I work with organisations going through change, it’s a lot about having to change people’s behaviour.

And they point to individuals who might be obstructive. And I remember one particular programme, everybody complained about this poor lady called Ruth who worked in procurement and just said no the whole time. And all you heard was about complaints about this person. And then you sat and had the conversation in a different way and said, do you think Ruth comes to work every day to be unhelpful? Do you think that’s what gets her out of bed in the morning to come here and say no to people? It’s not. It’s the organisation has done that to her. It has put processes, policies, systems around her, which means that’s the only outcome she can give to you. It’s not her responsibility. It’s the organisation’s responsibility.

They’ve created an environment that have made her show up in that way. You change that, you change Ruth. It’s not Ruth’s problem. It’s the organisation and its duty of care and its obligation to create a safe, supportive, productive environment. And to Karen Anne’s point, if I may, about being uncomfortable, my work in the healthcare system, nobody talks about death.

And it’s a bit about the suicide point that’s been made earlier. And I remember an end of life care nurse going into a boardroom to do a presentation on their service. And they just asked everybody in the boardroom, can you just all please say the word dead, death, dying. Just keep saying it. And everybody felt really uncomfortable because they would all say, Oh, gone to a better place, passed on, no longer with us.

We don’t even use the words that these things mean. And her whole presentation was about making that group of people feel uncomfortable and get comfortable with having a conversation that none of us have because nobody wants to have it And if we don’t have it, we have a bad death and we have a bad end of life.

And it’s exactly the same parallels with Karen Anne’s point. If we don’t have conversations in our organisation about what we’re not doing right, about where we’re letting people down, about getting comfortable with talking about topics that nobody wants to talk about, like the thought of a colleague committing suicide, we will never make progress.

And so the opportunity cost of not doing that, is you’ve got unsafe, unsupported, unproductive people, and your organisational performance suffers. There’s a simple corollary between those things for me. 

Amy: Absolutely. I just want to pick up on the terminology as well, in terms of “commit suicide” because we aim not to use that terminology now. That comes from when suicide was illegal. and it has an impact again on how we think about it and our ability to talk about it, right?

so yeah, it’s about changing up the language that we’re using, and using the language that we want people to talk about. Denis, what does it mean in real terms to an organization? what’s the opportunity cost from your perspective?

Denis: So before I answer that, I I used the term commit suicide before because for my generation, that was the term that was often used, and I think you’ve made a really good point there because no one has ever corrected me on the use of that term. Not that I use it on a day to day basis, although I should say I was taught by Jesuits.

I was told from an early age I was going to burn in hell, so, you know, in some respects, I’m sort of used to that, doom and gloom, perspective because I’m a risk analyst. The thing that bothers me is remote working. So what organizations have done is that if they’ve looked at the space that they have, and they’ve said, we can utilize that resource better by getting people to work at home, we can sell off all buildings.

But the problem is, we now have no means of picking up on early warnings about the behaviours of colleagues, people who might be stressed, people who are sat in a bed sit on their own, day in and day out, trying to, to work. They’ve got no separation between home and work. Now, I’m an academic, I’m used to that, but for a lot of my younger colleagues, they miss on that social interaction that was important to their wellbeing. and and I think, in a way, it’s the sort of other side of the opportunity cost comment, because what we’ve got is, is really a sort of deficit potential here that we are creating.

We’re embedding a problem for some of our colleagues in terms of mental health that will only emerge in maybe five, 10 years time. and then we’ll say, Oh, isn’t this awful? How did it happen? but really we can see it happening in front of us now in real time.

Amy: yeah. that’s a whole other panel event on hybrid working, let me tell you.

Julie: But this is about spotting signs. Sorry, Amy, if I may. I was Chief Executive of a safety organisation 15 years ago, and we were dealing with the legacy of industrial safety challenges. So things like mesothelioma and injuries and long term health conditions that were caused by the conditions that people were working in.

And already, 15 years ago, they were saying, well the next big challenge is going to be about screen time that we all have and that was 15 years ago before we had hybrid working. So we knew about this and we know it’s coming we can see what the next challenge is so where are the conversations proactively in organizations about thinking about well being in that broader sense, not we can make everybody more productive and save money because they’re all working from home but what’s the long term cost to that to the kind of social capital that you create in organisations with people being together As well as the physical health issues that this will cause, most of all staring at screens.

Denis: Can I pick up on that because I think what the mesothelioma case and pneumoconiosis also illustrate is that lag time where managers will deny that there’s a problem. And then there’s a period after that where managers very often think, not on my watch. And therefore, you know, it gets kicked into the long grass.

And I think remote working, screen time, all of these issues have been, to an extent, kicked into the long grass because a bit like CSR, you know, it’s a long term strategic process, but management very often focuses on short term goals where they can either show return to stakeholders or shareholders, or to the people above them that we’ve made this contribution.

And I think short termism is one of the single biggest problems we have to overcome in order to address some of these issues around well being in the workplace.

Amy: Yeah, and there’s, as I said, there’s a, there’s an awful lot still discussion going on in terms of hybrid and the impact of hybrid, but also the impact. I was reading an article quite recently about, the impact of saying, you’ve all got to be back in, in the workplace. You’ve all got to be back in the office when people have become used to a more flexible way of working.

So it’s a fine line, and I think it’s different for every organisation, at least that’s what we’re finding when, we’re speaking to different clients, there’s, there’s lots of ways that this can work for organisations, equally there is, as you say, quite a big downside if people aren’t physically getting in the room together on a regular basis.

 Denis, a double question. so what’s in it for organisations, to walk the talk and how do we encourage them to do it?

Denis: I’m possibly the worst person to answer that question because as far as I’m concerned, what’s in it for organizations? It’s what they’re supposed to do. It’s not some sort of of add on that’s optional. It’s a core organizational and managerial requirement to look after the health, safety and welfare of people in your organization.

1974 Health and Safety at Work Act has welfare in it. you know, in a sense, we shouldn’t be preaching to the converted, right? So that’s the rant over with. What was the second part of the question?

Amy: How do we encourage organisations to take that core notion of look after your people? How do we encourage them to walk the talk in terms of no more wellbeing washing?

Denis: I think that’s back to that CSR issue again, you know, because for many organizations, rightly or wrongly, and I think wrongly, wellbeing is an intangible. It’s not something that immediately appears on the bottom line. It’s not something that is very often addressed in, you know, management performance appraisals.

It’s not something that we as a collective in an organization are encouraged to do in terms of our colleagues. And it’s back to that, three elements of culture, awareness, commitment and competence. We really have to drive home those issues in the same way that happened with health and safety at work.

But it took a long time to change that culture to make managers much more aware about their responsibilities in terms of dealing with, safety in the workplace.

Amy: Yeah, absolutely. 

Denis: And, And, really mental health is an aspect of that. 

Amy: and we would argue that there is a real time cost and you can work out how much it’s costing your organisation. We promote, the use of the N.I.C.E. costing tool, for example, to help organisations to realise the actual cost. It still sticks with me, though, that actually you’ve got to say, look, it’s costing you this much when it should just be a natural thing, as you said earlier, Denis, it should be we just do this because this is the way we exist. Karen Anne, what are your thoughts? How do we encourage organisations to, stop wellbeing washing and start walking the talk?

Karen Anne: Yeah, I think the parallels with health and safety are good ones. It is a legal requirement, there’s no getting away from that in the UK and other countries in Europe. We have to manage psychosocial risks in the workplace. black and white. I think trying to appeal to organisations in the same way as we would have done In terms of health and safety, 20, 30 years ago, if someone’s off work with recovering from an operation or if they break their leg, we are more than happy to make all the adjustments needed to bring them back to work in a good way and to keep them with us.

We don’t have that same level of maturity when it comes to people who are off with a mental health issue. There’s still this kind of fear around how we bring them back into the workplace and we need to get the same willingness to put adaptations in place to help keep people up working and help them thrive at work as we would do for a physical safety concern, or a physical injury that someone’s had at work.

Amy: When you look at what’s happening globally and in general in the UK, we’re doing pretty well, but there’s still a long way to go, isn’t it? I know you’ve got that sort of global outlook, haven’t you, Karen Anne?

Do you want to share a little bit about the work, that’s going on in Volvo in South Korea, for example.

Karen Anne: Yeah, so, there is a long way to go. and even within Volvo, we still have this debate between whether it’s work related mental health or it’s personal mental health. And, for me and the message that we’re trying to get across is it really doesn’t matter, um, because you don’t just look after the employee that’s there for eight hours of the day.

You have to look after the whole person. And people are messy. and they’re complicated and life is going to interfere with work and vice versa. as part of our safety awards every year we have a mental health category and this year I think we got about 20 applications. And when we selected the top three, one of the applications from Korea was one of the ones that made the top three just in terms of what they’re doing as a site within South Korea to challenge the stigma to try and address the suicide rates that exist there. They’re really trying to open up the conversations about mental health in the workplace, make it okay. they have brought in support in terms coaches and, Psychologists and different kind of support mechanisms for people to talk to and it doesn’t matter if it’s work related or not work related.

But the reason that application stood out for us that were selecting the top three was just because of where they are in terms of a cultural journey as a country. So it’s really interesting to see the different approaches Volvo group because we have a Swedish headquarters, they’re very far advanced in mental health, talking about psychosocial risks, and same for  sites in Europe, but we have sites all over the world. We’re South Korea, we’re in India, we’re in China, we’re in the US, where they all have very different approaches to mental health and wellbeing, and very different of stigma still attached to mental it’s interesting to see maturity levels different of the organisation

Amy: learn from other parts of the world, and how people are, it sounds like everywhere we’re having to work to question some viewpoints within society, and in some places more so than others.

 Julie, what’s in it for the organization to walk the talk and how do we encourage them to do so?

Julie: I’m with everybody here that there’s a basic human principle here, isn’t there, that there’s the humanity and obligation to take care of one another, and frankly, that’s a whole bigger debate. If we all did that every day, the world would be a nicer place, wouldn’t it? But I think there’s also when theory meets reality I’ve yet to meet anybody who comes home from work every day feeling like they’ve got everything done on their to do list and so there are too many competing demands in organisations very often. And so things don’t get prioritised. And ultimately that’s why organisations have levers and incentives. So whether it’s what gets, measured gets managed and all those kinds of analogies. To actually change a culture, you have to make it consequential. And all of my transformation work around changing cultures, I see people, there’s three steps to this. Be really clear about the ask. Put the support in place to make it happen, and then apply consequences. People don’t like the word consequences. It can be positive consequences, but there has to be a consequence for behaving in the way you want people to behave or not.

And it’s exactly the same with organisations here. If you want a culture that prizes wellbeing, you have to really clearly articulate the what. What does that mean for us? What’s the ask? You then have to make sure you’ve got all the support in place for that to happen. So whether it’s the services, the tools, the infrastructure, or equipping your managers with the skills to be able to do this well, because this might be a new way of working for people, so that all of the excuses are taken away then, because you’ve got the ask, you can’t have people saying, I didn’t know how to do it.

You do all of that first, and only then can you start to hold people to account, measure, manage, and apply consequences. And then you use the levers and incentives that you have in any organisation around how you manage performance, or how you distribute reward, if it’s financial or otherwise, or recognition in other ways, and you incentivise people to do the right thing.

Because when their to do list has got dozens of things on it, and they can’t see the immediate benefit of this compared to other things, it will fall down the list. So there’s something about making it really tangible and gritty and consequential so it puts it top of mind and equips people to be able to do the right thing every day because ultimately people will make choices and they’ll go to where the levers and incentives are.

yeah, fantastic points. I’d just like to bring Angus in and we’ll have a look at some of the thoughts and comments that people have been putting into the chat. So Angus, what have, what’s been said in there?

Angus: We have a lot of, comments going on. So I’ve got one here from, Casey Fitzpatrick. Good to see you there, Casey, and, it’s for Karen Anne, do you see the Health and Safety Executive holding organisations to account for wellbeing? I know that the HSE are looking more at work related stress and pulling organisations up.

What do you reckon, Karen Anne? 

Karen Anne: As far as I know, they already are. There’s already been some cases that have been brought against businesses for not managing psychosocial risks. You know, it is a legal requirement that we do have to follow the management standards and, I think we’ll probably see more of that going forward, Julie and Denis were saying, there’s this lagging period and we’re going to see an increase in work related mental health probably a few years down the line, so I think we’ll see enforcement action increase, not that that’s what should drive 

the change. We shouldn’t be making changes and investing in wellbeing because we’re scared of prosecution. We should be doing it for all the reasons that we’ve talked about, but I absolutely think that we’ll see an increase going forward.

Angus: Thank you. I’ve got one, coming in here from Andy Thompson. Are there any examples of shareholders paying attention to wellbeing investments? They ultimately drive the reward for senior leaders and CSR. and has there been good examples of that? Julie, what do you reckon?

Julie: I haven’t seen any yet but it’s the greatest lever and incentive I think in the corporate world if you suddenly get a shareholder rebellion over this or you get 

Angus: We have been working with an organisation where they’re owned by a private equity company. And, private equity, as everybody knows, has a pretty bad reputation for really screwing down on the numbers. this Private Equity company has two companies they own which are in the top ten best places to work in the Sunday Times.

Yeah, and that is obviously deliberate. It’s a deliberate policy where the shareholders are guiding the company they own to do this type of thing. I think that is a fascinating example and it’s also incredibly rare. But great question there, Andy. Thank you.

Amy: Yeah, brilliant. I wanted to go back to actually what you said, Julie, around consequences for an organisation. Something tangible, you said something gritty. What, in your opinion, should those consequences be?

Julie: So I think everybody’s performance should be measured on two dimensions. We measure performance one dimensionally, which is on tasks, and we don’t measure behaviours. And it’s completely measurable, you can measure the impact of a changing culture, it’s all tangible, and if you get to a place where you manage performance on both task and behaviour, then you can incentivise a collective change around that.

So, if prioritising wellbeing, if, showing up in a way which has more empathy, more consideration, more flexibility for people’s needs. Accessing and actively promoting support around wellbeing that might exist in the organization, allowing people time to commit to initiatives or, the lunchtime yoga meetup, whatever it is

that has been put in place and you actually codify that into people’s performance requirements and you manage people’s performance against it. It’s the easiest way of making culture consequential and actions consequential. And so few organisations want to do it. And I think it’s a bigger challenge. I think it’s because performance management and objective setting is so rigid, and I think forward thinking organisations have moved away from annual appraisals and annual objectives, and they set much more agile and iterative priorities throughout the year, and it drives performance faster.

So if you’ve got somebody who isn’t participating, a manager who isn’t participating in the wellbeing agenda, you can start asking why, you can put the support in place, you can then start saying, I expect you in the next three months to have shown up and done these things. And it’s a short window where you drive change faster than if you just put a big global objective at the start of the year which feels intangible and not personal to that individual. If every individual makes a contribution in a different way, the collective is much, much greater than the sum of its parts. So it all comes to about how you task people and what you’re asking them to do every day for me.

Angus: That actually links really nicely, Julie, to a question from Chris Abbey. Again, good to see you, Chris. I think that some companies and leaders are uncomfortable in tackling the problem, therefore do the minimum. Denis, what would you say to that?

Denis: I think, in a lot of cases, organizations recruit managers against all the wrong criteria. so, that’s what makes them feel uncomfortable. There’s an interesting argument, by one of the founding fathers of research into psychopathy in the U. S. who did his work in prisons initially, but he said, if he was doing it now, he’d do it on Wall Street.

Because, you know, a lot of the characteristics that, those organizations recruit to being driven, being highly focused, being really motivated to get the job done are actually potentially negative characteristics in terms of building a culture of wellbeing in the organization. So it becomes a focus on the individual rather than the collective, which speaks to to comments made by both Karen and Julie before.

If we don’t change that, you know, we’re then going to find it really hard to change the individual because they’re going to say, but I was recruited to do X, Y, and Z, and that’s what I’m doing. You know, I’m driving profit. I’m driving down overhead costs. I’m doing all the things that I’m being asked to do.

Mental health wasn’t on that list. Wellbeing wasn’t on that list. And I think, if we’re not careful, if we don’t take a holistic view of this issue, we’ll develop a reductionist approach to dealing with it, where we’ll actually, put a gloss on some of the things that we do without changing the fundamental characteristics of the organization to make us recognize that wellbeing at work is a key managerial task.

Angus: We so often hear there’s a lack of confidence. People are scared. They don’t talk about it. They don’t have those difficult conversations. And, building that confidence is so important to getting this into the mainstream. 

Amy: Catherine Tierney has said, I’ll, point this one to you first, Karen Anne. She says, I’m interested to know how best, and it ties in really with what Denis was talking about. I’m interested in how best to mainstream wellbeing rather than see it as this add on. It should be central to, to most or all decisions.

Karen Anne: I think part of that, Denis hit the nail on the head with the way that we recruit leaders and  managers and, it’s often done for very technically competent reasons. They’re very good at their job, but they don’t have the people skills necessarily to lead, teams effectively or get the most out of and I think the biggest thing we can do to make it mainstream is to make sure that leaders at all levels of the business walk the talk, you know, it’s no good having a robust wellbeing program in place if you have senior leaders who send emails when they’re on vacations, send emails at one o’clock in the morning, you know, are contactable while they’re in hospital.

That sets your tone, that sets your culture, and that filters down through all levels because then other people feel that they can’t take time off if they’re sick. My boss kept working while he was in hospital or while he was on vacation. So that sets your culture. So we really need to get change from the top for it to become mainstream and accepted throughout the whole organisation.

Amy: Absolutely. and it’s about that constant search also, isn’t it? For what are the potential stressors in the organisation? you’re actually getting to 

the 

root cause of stuff, and those discussions are happening at every level within an organisation. And it’s about that openness, isn’t it, to cause and effect and, how people are dealing with that.

I know there’s lots more thoughts and comments in the chat. Thank you for sharing that. Karen Anne, would you like to kick off by telling us a little bit more about Commit to Culture Change as a top tip?

Karen Anne: You have to be uncomfortable, you have to get in about the detail, and it’s going to take time to see sustainable change happen.

Amy: Great. And that probably ties into your second point there.

Karen Anne: Yeah, so I put listen to your employees, but I think probably it’s more realistic to say hear your employees. I think a lot of organisations are great at listening, they’ll put out survey after survey, they’ll get all the information, but they don’t hear what people are telling them, so actually listen to what they’re saying. understand what they’re saying and then do something with that as opposed to just putting it in a drawer and asking the same question next year.

Amy: Thank you, Karen Anne. Moving on to you, Denis. Be willing to call out poor managerial practices forward slash BS around mental health and its causal factors.

Denis: Obviously, I work in a business school, which is what BS stands for. So let’s, I’d hate anybody to think it was a pejorative term. This might be heresy to some people. Stop talking about risk. Risk is probability and consequence. We can’t measure the probabilities associated with the behavior of human actors.

We should talk about vulnerability. And the consequences associated with vulnerability, but the minute we say, Oh, it’s low risk, we kick it into the long grass, but we’ve got no evidence base for making that judgment as to whether it’s low risk. The Titanic only sank once, right? It was a low probability, high consequence event.

There was no prior, indication of a failure associated with that system and in terms of of a lot of mental health and wellbeing in the workplace, we don’t have that prior knowledge to allow us to calculate effective probabilities with predictability. So, so stop pretending that it’s a risk that we can manage, it’s a vulnerability we can manage, and the consequences are things that we have to address. And I think that obsession with, with calculative practices is a means of, of allowing some managers to kick wellbeing issues into the long grass. Rant over.

Amy: Thank you. Second point, engage in a process of self reflection. 

Denis: Which, I will do over a cup of coffee afterwards. I think we all have to think about how our actions might impact on others. You know, that, we should manage our colleagues in a way that we would like to be managed ourselves rather than take a command and control managerialist approach, which is very often what you see in practice, but, you know, to think about what  are the likely consequences, irrespective of probability, what are the likely consequences associated with this action on people who are having to deal with a job at the sharp end? And it’s back to that point about, management behaviours that people lead by example. and, really that self reflection process is important.

Amy: Thank you, Denis. Julie, lead authentically with people genuinely at the heart of every decision.

Julie: I think this comes back to some of the points I’ve made in the debate, Amy. I see too many managers. who are leaders in organization, who focus on objectives and deliverables and the tasks. And they forget that the only way any of that happens is that performance comes through their people. And I think if people start with the, “how do I get the best out of my people?” then everything else follows, whether it’s profit or purpose, whatever it is you’re in pursuit of. you start with, how do I get the best out of my people? And guess what? We’re not robots and we’re all different and some people will need managing in different ways to others. How many people have actually sat down with their teams and said, how will I get the best out of you?

What do you want to see more of or less of from me to help you deliver to your best? What are you missing? What can I help with? If you have a people centered approach to leadership, you will automatically get the best out of your people and you will create a level of safety and trust which will enable them to talk to you if they’ve got an issue.

And that’s where you get your signs.

Amy: And finally, Promote a Culture of Feedback.

Julie: Every high performing culture I’ve seen in organisations has feedback at its heart. It’s not a word that people dread. It’s not a word that people fear because they think it’s going to be something I’ve done wrong. People ask for and seek feedback all the time. They ask and check in. How are you? How am I doing?

Could I have done better there? Is there something more I could do? What do you want more or less of? It’s a, it’s just a ready part of the conversation. It’s not something that happens in an appraisal. And I think having that open feedback culture allows you, again, to pick up on the early warning signs and to genuinely be connected with the true wellbeing of your workforce, because they’ll talk to you.

Amy: Fantastic. Thank you. One very quick fire question for each of you. Are you ready? Denis, what’s one of the kindest things you’ve noticed at work?

Denis: Oh gosh. I mean, simply picking up on, on that point, that, that people will say, how how are you?

Amy: Thank you. Julie, if you could create a new award for someone at work. What would it be for?

Julie: Oh,

 The person with the greatest amount of curiosity.

Amy: Oh, I love that. Karen Anne, what does vulnerability mean to you?

Karen Anne: Being uncomfortable. 

Amy: On that very comfortable note, I’m going to hand over to Angus. Thank you, everyone.

Angus: This is absolute gold dust. Everybody should have this. Everybody should hear this. It’s so important. The passion that you guys have, the knowledge, the expertise, the experience, this needs to go out to a much wider audience. And I hope that, when people listen to this, they will take it on board and they will apply that expertise, that knowledge, that passion that you have, because this is how to do it.

It isn’t difficult stuff. Julie, you say, start with how do we get the best out of our people? Just ask that question. It’s not rocket science, but it’s a great starting point. And Karen Anne, you’re talking about style over substance and addressing the root causes.

Addressing those root causes of stress is, we believe, one of the key things that you have to do. If you’re not doing it, you’re only ever going to be washing over it. Yeah, it’s so important. And Denis. this is really simple. this is what we are supposed to be doing. It’s not difficult.

It’s what we’re supposed to do at work is look after our people. So I would like to thank you on behalf of everybody here and everybody who’s going to listen to this as a podcast. Thank you all very, very much. We greatly appreciate it. We love your passion. We love your expertise, and thank you. It’s, a great pleasure to have you on the Wellbeing Hour.

And on the Wellbeing Hour coming up, the next one is with Chris Abbey, who’s here today. Thank you, Chris, for coming along. And, Chris is Senior Vice President of HSE for UK, Ireland and Nordics for Altrad. Altrad is a very large industrial services company based in France and covers across the UK as well and the world.

That is on 15th May, it’s at 12 noon, so sign up for it, it’s going to be a cracker. We’re going to be talking about what way is up, understanding perspectives. Some dates for your diary as well. We also have, we are at Women in Nuclear, and Amy and myself are doing a live event there. So if you’re anywhere near Manchester, I know you are at the moment, Denis, But if you’re anywhere near Manchester, then come along, see us,

visit us at stand 17, 15th May, we have the wellbeing hour there with Chris on 26th. June, we have the Wellbeing Hour with Ollie Folayan, MBE Head of Process at Optimus Plus, and a visiting professor at the University of Dundee. 23rd July, we have, Adrienne Kelbie CBE. She’s a leadership coach and non exec director, former Head of the Office for Nuclear Regulation and the first patron of Women in Nuclear UK.

That is at a different time, it’s at 2. 30 in the afternoon. Stay in touch. Please follow us on LinkedIn. it does make a difference and you’ll see what we’re doing there in terms of these events. We have solutions for all levels of organizations from senior leaders, to people managers, to direct and indirect staff. Somewhere there is a QR code, which is coming up, there it is. Yep. So if you want to get in touch with us, scan that QR codes, we will come along and talk to you and have a free consultation in terms of mental health. It’s a great pleasure and it’s a great honour to run the Wellbeing Hour. On behalf of all of us at Headtorch, thank you for coming along.

Thank you for giving your time. And, that is it from the Wellbeing Hour today. Have a great day, everybody. Thank you.

Amy: Thank you.