Wellbeing at work
There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist most easily succumbs: activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys our own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our own work because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful. ― Thomas Merton
👥 Serves: 11-25 people, 2-10 people, 26-40 people, 41+ people
🎚 Difficulty: Medium
⏳ Total time: Ongoing
🥣 Ingredients: Your teams and your skills
🤓 Wholebeing Domains: Accomplishments, Community, Meaning
💪 Wholebeing Skills: Ambition, Belonging, Collaboration, Commitment, Fulfilment, Reciprocity
Wellbeing at work
📝 Description
Bringing organisational wellbeing to life.
In an article on the Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR), author Linda Mitz Sadiq mentions the research conducted by The Wellbeing Project (TWP) – which Recipes for Wellbeing is part of their Ecosystem Network – that shows how leaders who invest and engage their staff in inner wellbeing initiatives and processes can foster healthier and more effective organisations. This result is particularly important for leaders who may have a tendency to discount the value of a participatory wellbeing learning process when the pressure from internal and external environments becomes too much. In fact, experience is showing that the commitment as a whole to become more resilient and effective. The following recipe is for organisational leaders who want to bring wellbeing in their organisation and it has been inspired by Linda’s article on the SSIR and TWP’s wellbeing research.
👣 Steps
Step 1 – Commit wholeheartedly
Before engaging your staff, it is important that you reflect on your reasons for wanting to bring wellbeing in your organisation, to ensure you are fully committed to its success. The following questions are a good starting point:
- How does your organisation live its stated values internally?
- How motivated, energised, and engaged are you, your colleagues in the leadership team, and the rest of your staff?
- What would your staff say about the frequency, focus, openness, and humanity of your organisation’s regular connections and communications?
- How does your organisation currently support its staff to take care of their mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing?
- In what ways does your organisation model a leadership style that encourages collaboration and co-creation, and shows you trust your staff’s capabilities?
- What are your hopes for the overall impact of the wellbeing learning process on your organisation and what resources might be needed to succeed in this effort?
- How willing and able are you to be a champion for the effort, even when roadblocks present themselves or other issues compete for attention?
Step 2 – Lay the capability groundwork
After this initial reflection on the leadership commitment, ensure that your organisation has capable in-house or external coaching/facilitation support to invite and encourage broad and open staff involvement. These essential skills include active listening, the ability to foster trust by creating safe spaces for open, honest conversations, and an understanding of the human dynamics of change.
Step 3 – Encourage active staff participation
To ensure the sustainability of the wellbeing programme and learning process with your organisation, it is of paramount importance that you actively involve your staff in all aspects of its design and implementation. They must feel that their viewpoints and ideas are valued and that ownership and accountability are shared among all. Offer them a clear, open, and ongoing invitation to learn with you as you work to bring wellbeing into life in your organisation so that it becomes “just the way we do things here”. Our recipe “Organisations as inquiring systems” might be of support here, so might the recipe “Workplace wellbeing programme evaluation” when you need to assess the effectiveness of the initiatives implemented.