Does the link between embedding well-being in the workplace and improved long term organizational performance need a more profound cultural shift.

While there has been significant interest in the concept of well-being over the past few decades, there is no single approach to workplace well-being.

Many populations, particularly those in high income countries, are moving up the hierarchy. People’s basic physiological needs are met – food, water, shelter etc. State health, education and benefit systems and increased employment mean that Maslow’s safety needs are now accessible to, not all, but more people.

According to Maslow, it is human nature to strive to move up the hierarchy: “Human life will never be understood unless its highest aspirations are taken into account. Growth, self-actualization, the striving toward health, the quest for identity and autonomy, the yearning for excellence (and other ways of phrasing the striving “upward”) must by now be accepted beyond question as a widespread and perhaps universal human tendency.”

(Maslow, 1954, Motivation and Personality, pp.xii-xiii)

It is no surprise then that many of the definitions of well-being identify that it is about more than physical health; it’s about how we feel: our expectations and sense of fulfilment. This is seen in the most recent definition of well-being at work from the new international standard on psychological health and safety at work, ISO 45003: Fulfilment of the physical, mental and cognitive needs and expectations of a worker related to their work.

However, the primary reason that the well-being flame flickers and eventually goes out is that organizations often approach them as ‘initiatives’ They may be unwilling to commit to a significant cultural shift to build trust and take a strategic, long-term approach to prioritizing their people.

Existing models on workplace well-being such as the WHO Healthy Workplace, ILO Solve, and Total Worker Health touch on elements of this, and studies and reports such as ‘Thriving at work’ and ‘Is work good for health and well-being?’ draw out additional points, each looks through a specific lens, not holistically and carries unconscious bias – and, most importantly, none consider the linkages between people and resilient organizations.

BSI’s Prioritizing People Model© has been created to close any gaps and provide a holistic view of challenges, considering the elements required for resilient organizations.

Find out more by downloading the prioritizing people whitepaper.

Source: Well-being: why we need a shift in corporate mindsets

Can culture of care driven by the global pandemic translate into long-term trust between worker and employer.

For the current culture of care to emerge, a far more important cultural shift has had to happen. If fully embraced, this evolution has far reaching, powerful and exciting benefits for organizations and the individuals that work for them.

Trust is the output of the culture of an organization. It is established and underpinned by leadership and their individual and group values, attitudes, managerial practices, perceptions, competencies, and patterns of behaviours – these establish and underpin the level of trust.

A lack of trust, and the culture that underpins it, is not always explicit, but can often be seen in many different aspects of an organization and its approach to its people; performance management is focussed on output KPIs, not input; weekly timesheets are required; flexible or home working is not allowed.

Whilst the COVID-19 pandemic has helped reveal this further, it has also fanned a flickering ember of hope. The biggest test of trust has happened due to the enforced shift to home working. During COVID-19 vast swathes of the working population pivoting from working in an office one day to working in their kitchen the next. the feeling is that productivity went up – not down.

BSI’s Prioritizing People Model© is focussed on creating trust to unlock an individuals’ full potential and to provide the right framework for fulfilment and well-being. We believe it provides a route map for an organization’s journey to cultural maturity and the opportunity to realize its full potential through the well-being of its people.

Find out more by downloading the prioritizing people whitepaper.

Source: Can the care built during COVID-19 establish a long-term workplace culture of trust?

The COVID-19 pandemic provided reminded us of the human aspect of what it means to be a thriving employee. Can we sustain the newfound culture of care in the workplace beyond the pandemic?

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic we rediscovered the value of humanity in the workplace. This was a disruption that impacted everyone. Hierarchical barriers of ‘them’ and ‘us’ were replaced with ‘we are all in this together’, creating a a greater culture of care.

Looking after people was, of course, the right and socially responsible thing to do but there was also an often-forgotten business benefit that was clearly highlighted in BSI’s Organizational Resilience Index Report 2021. Organizations that prioritize their people are more resilient, not only surviving but were in a better position to start to build back better.

And real change is underway.

Whilst homeworking and flexible hours may not be the panacea for everyone, COVID-19 has encouraged a new, more people focussed approach where autonomy and flexibility are valued, creating a new culture of care based on trust.

The UN Global Compact and Sustainable Development Goals are gaining traction as Generation Z demand action on climate change and a workplace that prioritizes their well-being. Governments are increasingly concerned about the social burden of mental illness, obesity, chronic illness, and an ageing population and are looking to organizations to keep workers healthy and in work longer through sustainable employability. Organizations are looking at digitization and technology and taking action to ensure they survive and thrive.

Further evidence supporting a greater focus on employee Health, Safety and Wellbeing can be found in the BSI-sponsored BCI Horizon Scan Reports. Each year, the report captures the biggest disrupters to organizations for the next 12 months. For the last three years, health and safety incidents have scored in the top three disrupters.

BSI’s Prioritizing People Model© has been designed to support any organization to create the right conditions for individual fulfilment (well-being) and organizational resilience, irrespective of their starting point. This best practice model recognises that if people’s basic needs are effectively addressed, then any progress made at the higher stages will be sustained.

We hope that the model will sustain the care we have seen during the pandemic, embedding these values and behaviours to generate significant cultural change.

Find out more by downloading the prioritizing people whitepaper.

Source: Can we sustain a culture of workplace care beyond the era of COVID-19?

Resilience and innovation: the business benefits to organizations who plot their resilience journey through workplace welfare to innovation by prioritizing their people

Just one of the many benefits of worker well-being for an organization is enhanced resilience, but what exactly is organizational resilience? It is defined as the “ability of an organization to anticipate, prepare for, respond and adapt to incremental change and sudden disruptions in order to survive and prosper.” - BS 65000 guidance on organizational resilience.

To help organizations better understand organizational resilience, BSI developed a best practice framework that guides organizations through the key elements required to enable improved resilience. There are four categories to the model: leadership, people, process, and product and the people category is vital to achieve the organization’s goals as this is where the culture of trust is created.

The link between resilience and people is very clearly seen in the results of BSI’s Organizational Resilience Index Report 2021 where leaders who prioritized their people were seen to be the most resilient. The key is for organizations to harness this resilience for the long-term. Mastering organizational resilience means adopting best practice to deliver ongoing business improvement by building competence and capability across all parts of an organization.

BSI’s Prioritizing People Model© is a best practice approach to unlocking and fulfilling an individual’s potential by creating a culture of trust. With this culture of trust, organizations will not only survive but will thrive and accelerate to remain resilient.

It is our intent that the model supports significant cultural change and is a framework that can be easily embedded into the values of an organization and prompt a restructuring of corporate DNA.

The model identifies the right conditions for individual fulfilment (well-being) and organizational resilience. It describes the organizational benefits, from compliance, to productivity and culminates in resilience. Organizations that adopt the model will be agile and innovative and won’t simply survive, but will thrive.

The ultimate goal – innovation – sits at the very top of the model and is achieved via actualization, where individuals have the ability to continue to grow, to be creative, and to adapt.

Engaging in innovation activities is a way for an organization to be future-focused and effectively deliver on its overall objectives of securing prosperity, sustainability and longer-term relevance and survival.

For BSI, innovation is a critical element of organizational resilience.

Find out more by downloading the prioritizing people whitepaper.

Source: Resilience and innovation: the business benefits of prioritizing your people

Putting psychological health front and centre of prioritizing your people

Many of the definitions of well-being reflect that it is about more than physical health, it’s about how we feel, our expectations and sense of fulfilment. This is reflected in the most recent definition of well-being at work from the new international standard of psychological health and safety at work: ISO 45003 “fulfilment of the physical, mental and cognitive needs and expectations of a worker related to their work”.

Available evidence shows that every workplace has the potential to make someone mentally or physically ill at some point through psychosocial risks such as shift work, long hours, bullying, harassment, lack of autonomy or poor career development.

The BSI Prioritizing People Model© is based on best practice and is designed to support organizations to achieve greater resilience through a framework on well-being. Adapting the ‘needs’ framework from Maslow’s hierarchy, the model incorporates 16 elements required to demonstrate a human-centred approach.

Significantly, psychological health features at every level.

Belonging embraces factors such as the psychological contract – the unwritten expectations that workers and employers have about each other. It also supports consultation and participation to support two-way feedback channels. This phase also nurtures collaboration and positive relationships, encouraging openness, honesty, responsiveness and commitment, providing consistent behaviours and communication.

Esteem is a critical step in reaching fulfilment and starts with the maintenance of fair and respectful workplaces. Equity is central to the effort/ reward balance and it is important to remember that reward is not simply financial. Career development overlaps with effort/ reward and also needs to embrace continuous learning and the development of competencies and capabilities for achieving sustainable employability. The final piece of this picture is autonomy and the esteem that comes from independence and freedom.

Actualization is the pinnacle of the model and is driven by an individual’s ability to continue to grow, be creative and adapt.

For an organization, the benefits of unlocking this potential can be summarised into one word: innovation.

Find out more by downloading the prioritizing people whitepaper.

Source : Putting psychological health front and centre of prioritizing your people