What is Wellbeing and how can you support your people?

Ok, so I’m calling myself a Performance and Wellbeing coach, but let’s just discuss what I mean by Wellbeing?

We hear everyone talking about it on Instagram, at work, etc. This week I was chatting to someone at a Yoga studio where I have become a pseudo-community wellbeing lead and the owner suggested I help a member who was looking for nutritional advice, a nutritionist would have been best placed to do this! So after some careful research and time for reflection (as you’d expect from me) I have developed my position on it, I see Wellbeing as a way of measuring our Quality of Life, how happy and satisfied we are with “our lot”!

This is what makes wellbeing and the things we do to improve or maintain our wellbeing so particular to each and every one of us - because we’re all different! It also makes it difficult for organisations to develop a Wellbeing strategy because the plans they put in place to deliver this will not work for everyone. It also makes it difficult to measure because it's highly subjective and when you ask people how they measure their Wellbeing there may be things outside your organisation, whatever great stuff you are doing to support your people that may have an impact on their quality of life.

Despite its individuality, research identifies that some common pillars underpin our Wellbeing which are:

• How connected we feel (to our work; other people; our emotions; our sense of purpose; our environment and who we are);

• How healthy we are both mentally and physically; including our movement, our nutrition; our sleep; keeping our brain active and learning;

• How we feel about our environment and the resources we have access to; including our homes; food; and finances.

The theory is that we should look to tick some boxes in each of these areas to optimise our Wellbeing, but how we do this and what we choose to do will look a bit different for each of us.

As an organisation it is about offering a number of initiatives that align to each of these pillars and provide opportunities for your people. It’s about asking ‘As an organisation, what do we to help our people manage their nutrition? What do we do to ensure their work is connected to their purpose?

The challenge is that what we need to do can’t be managed by someone else, it has to be managed by ourselves. It doesn’t matter if our organisation encourages work and meetings not to be done after 9 pm so that people have time to wind down and get sufficient sleep. Accountability for doing that sits with the individual. If that individual does heed the advice to shut down by 9 pm and get an early night but they wake up at 4am with thoughts racing through their head, they need to have the tools and techniques to manage this and to try to get back to sleep.

I think organisations have two responsibilities when it comes to Wellbeing. The first is to ensure that they do everything they possibly can to ensure that people's work has a positive effect on their life and brings them joy and happiness. Then the second thing is to ensure that people’s work is not detrimental to other areas of their life.

I have two thoughts on what organisations can do to put themselves in the strongest position to support their people. First if you’re going along the approach of developing a Wellbeing strategy that is aligned to defined Wellbeing pillars and developing several initiatives/offerings that align to these, before you do this you undertake an extensive Persona Analysis so you can think about what support your teams need to improve their wellbeing and what role you are going to play as an organisation to support them.

The alternative/complementary approach would be to have a strategy that gives people in the organisation the tools and knowledge to be able to manage their own Wellbeing. This would require self-awareness on their part and start with developing a personalised Wellbeing plan, taking the time and the accountability to think about what they need individually.

I’m not just saying this because I am a coach but my recommendation would be to use someone external or outside of line management to do this. Perhaps even better to have someone do it who is a trained coach but can also pick up trends in the conversations and identify the systemic issues that come from the organisation and inhibit wellbeing. Your people can then be supported from the bottom up as solutions are developed to fix things in the organisation or put in place things that enhance wellbeing and also from the top down as they gain the personal skills to take charge and manage their fulfillment and happiness.

What's in it for you? A happier, more engaged workforce, with improved productivity and performance but that’s the subject of the another blog post!

How can I help you? I can work with you (with a team of coaches) to help your team develop their personal Wellbeing plans. I can also deliver a number of workshops and 1:1 sessions that help to develop the skills needed for people to take control of their own wellbeing. Drawing on my consulting skills I can also help you uncover the systemic issues in your organisation that might be contributing to people’s dissatisfaction at work and work with you to train line managers; facilitate team effectiveness; redesign jobs; develop new ways of working; instill cultural and behaviourial change.

If you are reading this as an individual I can also work with you 1:1 to help you build awareness of your wellbeing needs, help you develop a plan and build accountability.

GET IN TOUCH