We all know that workplaces are trying to improve staff health is aimed at a quid pro quo pay-off: healthier staff means fewer absences and greater productivity. More stuff gets done with fewer mistakes. On the other side of the ledger, staff are more resilient, are less likely to injure themselves, and are under less pressure. That's the theory, anyway. Most of we older hands take a much more cynical view than this.
It reminds me of what a health and safety related to me about a regional hospital. Doctors were apparently provided with a house to have a sleep in when they were working double-shifts. The HR leader thought this was a great wellness initiative: what I termed a band-aid on a volcano. Never mind increasing the staffing so that doctors didn't have to double shift: let's give them somewhere close by to have a kip... and leave the highly pressured environment exactly as it is.
And what Fleming's research shows is that pretty much all the wellness programmes that HR departments around the UK accomplishes is pretty much nothing. Our cynical view is accurate. Fleming said that he challenged "the popularity and legitimacy of individual level mental well‐being interventions like mindfulness, resilience and stress management, relaxation classes and well‐being apps", finding "little evidence in support of any benefits from these interventions with even some small indication of harm that would confirm fears from critics" (2024, p. 18). Ouch.
If instead HR departments worked on reducing the stress felt by staff, and the workload, results would be much more effective.
Sam
References:
Fleming, W. J. (2023). Employee well‐being outcomes from individual‐level mental health interventions: Cross‐sectional evidence from the United Kingdom. Industrial Relations Journal. Advance online publication, 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1111/irj.12418
Spicer, A. (2024, January 17). Work 'wellness' programmes don't make employees happier - but I know what does. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/17/work-wellness-programmes-dont-make-employees-happier-but-i-know-what-does
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