Making the shift from“survive’ to “thrive” depends on an organization becoming distinctly human at its core - a different way of being that approaches every question, every issue, and every decision from a human angle first.

2021 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends

If you read nothing else at the start of 2021, I recommend you read this report.

I do not think it is ground-breaking.

It covers subject matter that many of us have been shouting from the roof-tops for years.

Taking care of employee mental well-being.
Empowering workers and provided autonomy.
The importance of team.
Using real-time workforce data to drive decision-making and actions.
Changing HR role from enforcing policy to bringing humanity back into the workplace.

Search my blogs, and you will find all of those topics covered.

But maybe, because it is Deloitte, someone will sit-up and listen!

Let’s take the first point.

Taking care of employee mental well-being

Deloitte looked at the trends and what the organizations focused on surviving are doing as opposed to those who are focused on thriving.

Designing work for well-being: The end of work/life balance

The Trend: Organizations are taking well-being beyond work/life balance by starting to design well-being into work - and life - itself.
Surviving: Supporting well-being through programs adjacent to work.
Thriving: Integrating well-being into work through thoughtful work design

I have been writing and talking about building a resilient workforce and looking after the mental well-being of employees well before and throughout COVID-19. In November I showed my frustration when I said that i was sick and tired of organizations saying that they had it all under control because they had run a workshop 5 months ago or furnished their employees with an app to remind them to thank someone.

These are not bad initiatives but on their own, they are a waste of time and money. They are point solutions. They are as Deloitte references them - adjacent to work.

Organisations that are really committed to looking after the mental well-being of their people create an ecosystem of information, instruction, interactions, interventions and integrations - the five I’s - that are not bolted on to work as an after thought, but embedded into the fabric of the organisation through both intentional and thoughtful design.

Lip service

Much of the Deloitte report reads positively and cites COVID-19 as the catalyst to “cast new light on the importance of well-being and made us acutely aware of the consequences when well-being is put at risk.”

However, my experience is that most organisations are paying lip-service to the mental well-being of their employees. I hear lots of talk and little action.

In January 2020 I called for a little less conversation and a little more action please.

Deloitte also acknowledges this situation with their hypothesis.

COVID-19 has reminded us of the dual imperatives of worker well-being and work transformation, but executives are still missing the importance of connecting the two. Organizations that integrate well-being into the design of work at the individual, team, and organizational level will build a sustainable future where workers can feel and perform at their best.

Whilst the hyperbole of the majority might enable them to survive in the short-term, the action of the few with a thrive mindset with which they embed well-being into work design, will see these few leading the pack with improved outcomes in areas of customer satisfaction, organisational brand and reputation, innovation, and adaptability.

Disconnect

Deloitte also highlighted a disconnect between senior executives and individual workers in regard to prioritising well-being in transformation efforts. When both parties were asked the same question: “What are the most important outcomes you you hope to achieve in your work transformation efforts in the next one to three years?”

Workers said the top three objectives should be improving quality, increasing innovation and improving worker well-being.

Improving worker well-being was the second to last outcome identified by executives with only “increasing social impact “ receiving fewer votes.

In my December blog, I mentioned a USA survey that found 85% of people surveyed said that behavioural benefits were now an important factor when evaluating new jobs. The research found that behavioural health benefits were the number one priority for job seekers, ahead of financial advisory services, gym memberships and free meals.

Therefore, Investing in worker mental health will be fundamental to an organisation’s ability to attract and retain talent.

Resilience

I firmly believe that the crux to employee well-being is to build resilience in the face of constant, uncertain, unprecedented and volatile change.

It may not be another COVID that is around the corner but I put money on it, that whatever it is, we will not see it coming. That fact, along with the increasing speed of change required to stay ahead of the game, means we need a resilient workforce.

A workforce that doesn’t just bounce back from setbacks, but bounces forward better as a result of it.

A resilient workforce has reduced instances of mental health conditions among employees.

We can avoid what the World Health Organisation described in 2019 as “Burn-out is a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.

As mentioned earlier, mental-health programs in organizations should not be something bolted on to work as an after thought - it should be embedded into ways of working.

Every worker is different and therefore there is no one-size-fits-all solution. The information, instruction, interactions, interventions and integrations (5 I) available to employees, that I mentioned earlier, have to be customised to employee needs and contextual - that is, related to current circumstance.

We therefore need an ecosystem for resilience that has the following factors.

Customisable by employees to meet their needs
Contextual and addresses current challenges, concerns or adversities
Interactive and integrated into work
Measures resilience levels of individuals
Provides continual resilience development
Allows for anonymity
Allows personal choice in regard to how and when the 5 I’s are utilised
Provides ongoing leadership training to create an environment in which resilience can thrive
Enables early identification of low resilience and facilitates effective interventions
Motivates and engages with gamification
Offers new well-being resources
Provides data analytics to inform decision-making and actions to improve worker well-being
Accessible from anywhere at anytime
Access to support from internal and external resources

Unleash The Resiliator™ Within

At this point it would be remiss of me to not mention the Unleash the Resiliator Within program that does all of the above plus more.

The foundation of the program comes from my two 2020 publications:

Each has 20 superpowers for both individuals (everyone) and leaders to increase, sustain and maintain their resilience in the workplace.

Interested? Talk to me - you know where I am!

Summary

When you embed well-being into work, well-being becomes indistinguishable from work itself, embedded at all levels of the organisation.

The challenge that we all should be taking up is discover new ways to thrive in the long-term, even as change and disruption will constantly reset the path that we tread.

Bringing Humanity Back Into The Workplace