Guest blog by Dr Nupur Yogarajah
Why do we do the things we do? That sounds basic, but this human behaviour was not met by my medical degree. Practicing as a GP and developing long-term therapeutic relationships with my patients started to answer this, but not entirely. To answer it, I completed the MSc Behaviour Change (Health & Wellbeing), and identified the following gaps in workplace wellbeing:
Gap 1: The evidence-base gap in workplace wellbeing
There is no shortage of workplace wellbeing suppliers available, but often it is challenging to understand what evidence base these offers are built on. With approximately £41 billion spent globally on workplace wellbeing, the SOM’s buyers guide for “Wellbeing products or services” sums up succinctly the need for robust solutions in an overwhelming market:
“Putting in place evidence-based wellbeing products or services has the potential to improve workplace support, reduce work-related illness, prevent avoidable sickness absence and improve retention and performance.”
I find employers well intended regarding their employees’ wellbeing, but often commission expensive series of workshops, perks, and apps, without understanding the evidence (if any!) behind whether they work or measuring effectively if they have worked. The guide provides useful information for those buying wellbeing services to consider, to ensure their suppliers are incorporating available evidence in their products.
Gap 2: The behavioural science gap in workplace wellbeing
This is the second gap - a lack of applied behavioural science used to design workplace interventions to improve employee wellbeing. It would seem intuitive: if you are putting in place measures to improve employee wellbeing, leadership, or inclusion - which of course all depend on modifying or amplifying behaviour - that you base these on behavioural insights. Intuitive, but mostly unconsidered!
Some workplaces have realms of data from various staff surveys and feedback forms, but they are often not analysed using a sound methodological lens, or the data an organisation really needs is not being collected. Phase 1 of my work in organisations is spent working closely with them to understand their business and really define the problem in simple behavioural terms (easier said than done!).
Once we have this, we build the right questions to ask employees, drawn from a behavioural model such as the COM-B Model (capability, opportunity, motivation) by Michie, Stralen & West, to truly understand the various precursors of their behaviours. Deep analysis of the ensuing data from focus groups and surveys using research methodology then feeds into an evidence-based behavioural approach to developing interventions and recommendations.
For completeness, the recommendations are mapped across a workplace’s system layers: organisational, leadership and individual, ensuring a good spread across all layers to avoid the pitfall of placing all interventions in one place only. E.g. Providing lots of individual opportunities such as webinars and expecting employee wellbeing to improve, without considering leadership and organisational levers, is unlikely to succeed. (See example below - a spread of 19 recommendations recently produced for an organisation, covering their system layers.) Taking a systems view of wellbeing also ensures you do not run into unintended consequences from a well-meaning intervention, that creates strain or negative issues in another part of your organisation.
From this stage, it is very satisfying to offer support for implementation of any recommendations where an external provider is needed, using my combined hats of behavioural scientist and clinical leader.
Bringing it all together
When developing workplace interventions for wellbeing, health, leadership, inclusion - or any other “sticky” workplace problem involving human behaviour - consider:
- What is the evidence-based approach your supplier operates from?
- Behavioural science-based analysis of your data and recommendation development - after all, you are trying to influence behaviour, and some analysis outcomes may surprise you!
- Implementing your recommendations at a steady pace with a reliable provider - doing fewer things well is better than introducing multiple difficult-to-achieve things at once (another great tip from SOM!).
Whilst some recommendations are “low hanging fruit,” accepting that others will be more challenging and slower burn areas is helpful to retain energy to keep chipping away at it. After all, optimising employee health and wellbeing is complex and ongoing - but pulling on available evidence and behavioural insights certainly makes it more effective.
Dr Nupur Yogarajah, MBBS, MRCGP (2013), MSc Behaviour Change (Distinction), EMCC Psychosynthesis Leadership Coach. Founder of Dr NY www.drny.co.uk