Employee happiness and emotional health are never first on the agenda in a planning meeting, but they should be. The phrase ‘workplace wellbeing’ umbrellas everything from the physical to mental state of an organisation’s employees, and is set to stay as a focus for 2018 – initiatives promoting employee wellness are no longer a nice add-in, they’re imperative.
It’s brilliant that we can say it’s no longer even a trend. Employers are waking up to the onus they have to provide a nurturing and supportive working environment as well as helping employees through physical and mental health issues. It’s human, and it’s right. It also happens to drive effective leadership and boost performance sky-high… Who would have thought it? According to Office for National Statistics Labour Force Survey, in 2016, Britons took 137 million sick days, of which 15.8 million were for a stated mental health issue.
"Words – spoken or written – are what connect us to the world, and so speaking about it to people, and writing about this stuff, helps connect us to each other"
Matt Haig, author
Mental illness still walks in front of a huge shadow. I know, we should be through this by now. 1 in 4 adults in the UK will experience a mental health problem each year, for goodness sake*. We’ve forgotten how to talk about our mental and emotional health. The thing is, maintaining a high level of mental health provides at least three main benefits - it feels better, it promotes effective and authentic relationships, and it builds resilience (ie the more you invest into your mental health the less likely it is to slip again).
Happy, resilient people;
- get sick less often
- have more energy
- are more optimistic
- are more motivated
- are more creative
- learn faster
- make better decisions
- maintain their resilience
- work better with others
The business benefits and bottom line impact is clear to us - how about you?
Relationships at work
According to the World Health Organisation report, Mental health and work: Impact, issues and good practices, the consequences of poor mental health constitute absenteeism, work performance, staff attitude and behaviour and relationships at work. Teamwork is an internal resource that can provide a significant and sustainable competitive advantage. Great teamwork happens when team members trust each other and communicate effectively not when they’re feeling tired, stressed out , undervalued and unhappy.
If individuals aren’t communicating effectively, wires too often get crossed and behaviour misread. The Colour Works use the Insights Discovery system to transform teams and the biggest learn from everything we do is that communication is key. Having received your own Insights Discovery personal profile and knowing your preferred style, (get in touch to find how you can too), consider the table below, which describes the ‘8-types’ ‘good’ and ‘bad’ day behaviours. How have you been flexing your style to those around you lately?
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Conclusion
Employee wellbeing has a direct impact on company performance.
Look up from your emails and breathe in the vibe. How are they? How are you? Invest time in upping your own emotional intelligence and promote it to others. Make it normal to talk about behaviour, emotion, stress, and not being okay – we are all human with both a positive and negative scale, embracing both is vital if we want to get the best out of each other.
([1] McManus, S., Meltzer, H., Brugha, T. S., Bebbington, P. E., & Jenkins, R. (2009). Adult psychiatric morbidity in England, 2007: results of a household survey. The NHS Information Centre for health and social care.)
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