Is your culture part of the solution? Or part of the problem?
As a workplace wellbeing training consultancy we began our work setting out to support individuals. To give each employee a toolkit to take ownership and responsibility for their own health and wellbeing. To equip them to show up as the best version of themselves each day and to protect and build their own resilience.
What we learnt fast was that ‘you cannot yoga your way out of a toxic culture’. Meaning, we don’t exist in a vacuum. However many positive, healthy habits you consistently uphold as an individual, if you operate in an unhealthy culture that subjects you to chronic stress you will struggle to thrive and your wellbeing and performance will be impacted. Over time, your resilience will be depleted and you will likely experience poorer physical and mental health than those who work in organisations with a healthy culture.
Organisations with healthy cultures have employees who are more engaged, more productive and deliver better results. Organisations with unhealthy cultures experience more turnover, more absenteeism and presenteeism, more burnout and in some cases whistle blowing and PR disasters with disgruntled employees calling out exactly what it is they didn’t enjoy about working for you. In short, your culture can be part of the solution or part of the problem.
So, just how do we create these nirvanas?
Do we install a Nintendo Switch, a relaxation room, stick some apples on reception, get a headspace subscription and hope for the best?
Accessibility vs. Permissibility and Endorsement
Urrrrrm, well, no. Some of those things are great and can improve your working environment. But they are not mechanisms to change cultures.
Change management theories have been around since Lewin’s ‘Unfreeze, Change, Refreeze, model from the 1940’s but so much has evolved in the meantime in terms of the way we live and work, the way we consume information, the structure of our families and organisations that perhaps we need to refresh our thinking on how to create culture change.
We are talking specifically about cultivating a sustainable culture of wellbeing in organisations but the following principles would really be true for any type of culture change.
The first is to understand the difference between accessibility and permissibility and endorsement. So often, clients will tell us about the brilliant initiatives they have invested in to support the health and wellbeing of their people. It may be EAPs, gym memberships, access to coaching or therapy services, online training platforms. But, they tell us, engagement is low. Uptake is weak. People just aren’t using it.
This is because making resources accessible is not enough. Unless using these resources is made permissible and endorsed by senior leaders in the organisation, people won’t use them. They don’t feel safe to do so. They may feel they will be judged for using those services. It shows a weakness or a vulnerability they don’t want to expose. They may feel that their existence is just a box ticking exercise. A smokescreen to allow the business to continue to overwork and exploit them, rather than a genuine effort to improve the culture.
To bridge the gap between the intention and the reality, starting at the top of the organisation, permissibility and endorsement must be over communicated. If you want people to use the gym, tell them. Let them know it’s encouraged for them to leave their desk 15 minutes early to make it to a gym class. Promote it. Celebrate it even. Call out the individuals making use of the resources you have. Better still, show them. Have your senior leaders using the gym. Find opportunities during the working day to create space for people to use the gym. Get senior leaders starting conversations about the health and wellbeing resources they are using.
Set the new norms. Reframe expectations. This is an organisation where we expect people to use the health and wellbeing resources we have made accessible. We make it permissible and we endorse it. Because we know that a sustainable and healthy culture delivers better results.
‘Do as I say not as I do’: Contagion theory
Connected to the principle above, one of the most important things we need to understand about culture change is the theory of social contagion. Culture is the output of the collective behaviours of those within that culture. If we want to change culture we must infuse that culture with the behaviour change of those within it.
One of our most innate qualities as humans is our ability to mimic those around us. We are all born with this skill. It keeps us safe and helps us to understand the world around us. But what it means for leaders, is that they are continually imprinting on those working in their teams. People rarely do as we say but people almost always do as we do. Behaviour is contagious. It’s subconscious and it’s a very powerful fact of behaviour science.
If you want a healthy culture, with healthy individuals, it starts at the top. Leaders must display visible, healthy habits that can be mimicked by those around them. In our Welfy leadership training, we teach leaders the theory of social contagion and how to become healthy role models for their teams. Starting by adopting their own, tiny, visible healthy habits.
If you want to cultivate a sustainable culture of wellbeing in your organisation your leaders are your cultural gate keepers. They are the agents of culture change. It starts with them. Support them to become healthy role models who start a chain reaction of personal development within their teams.
5 ways to cultivate a sustainable culture of wellbeing in your organisation
1. Create endorsement
Accessibility isn’t enough. Senior leaders in your business must be a part of the journey to a healthier culture. Their endorsement is foundational to change happening and being sustainable into the long term. Health and wellbeing initiatives must be made permissible. Create the right conditions for people to access and engage with what is available to them. Make sure your communication sets an expectation that using your workplace wellbeing resources is actively encouraged, supported and celebrated.
Have your senior leaders share their own stories of engaging with workplace wellbeing initiatives. Make it clear that they are not ‘above’ needing to take care of themselves. They are not ‘superheroes’ with unattainable expectations and personal reslience. Make the connection between a healthy culture and high performance clear for people.
2. Harness the power of social contagion
Another reason to start at the top is the theory of social contagion. People will do as you do, not as you say. If you want your people to cultivate healthier habits, build their resilience and access the resources you are investing in, then create great role models of your leaders.
People will imitate their leaders. Behaviour, whether healthy or unhealthy, is contagious. Your organisational culture is made up of thousands of contagious habits. If you want people to eat well, rest well, move their bodies, have healthy coping strategies, build their resilience, then they need to see their leaders role modelling those behaviours and habits every day.
3. Cultivate human leaders
Leadership used to be about command and control. Now the most inspiring leaders are those who adopt a style of human leadership. Displaying qualities such as being vulnerable, authentic, empathetic and compassionate. These qualities come more naturally to some than others. At Welfy, our human leadership training series supports individuals to unlock these skills and reap the benefits in their teams.
Invest in great leadership training to ensure that your leaders know how to have brave exchanges with their people when required. There is no such thing as a ‘work self’ and a ‘home self’. Your people carry with them into work whatever is going on for them in life and sometimes a leader needs to be able to interpret the signs that it is time to intervene and offer someone the support they need.
4. Make sure your environment is psychologically safe
Psychological safety has become something of a buzz phrase in today’s organisations but there is no doubt that it is crucial in achieving culture change and maintaining a healthy culture. Operating in an environment where individuals are fearful to make mistakes, take risks or speak up amounts to subjecting people to chronic stress. In the VUCA business environments of today, coping with fear and stress alongside getting the job done, makes us vulnerable to ill mental and physical health, not to mention stifling productivity and results.
At Welfy, we use the EPR model to support leaders to create a psychologically safe environments which is known to be the number one factor in building high performing teams, as proven by Google’s project aristotle. Leaders learn to: Set expectations i.e. tell employees that you understand that this is complex, we expect mistakes to be made, we don’t have all of the answers. To invite participation i.e. create systems and structures for employees to have a voice, encourage them to speak up with their concerns, ideas, mistakes. And finally to respond appropriately, with gratitude, curiosity and reassurance when employees do speak up in order to show them that it is safe to do so again.
5. Start tiny
Tiny is transformative. All change at Welfy starts tiny. This approach is inspired by the don of behaviour change: B.J Fogg, author of the brilliant book, Tiny Habits. He has studied human behaviour at Stanford University for over twenty years and is responsible for teaching the architects of facebook about behaviour design, so he knows how our minds work and how to effect meaningful and lasting change.
Taking tiny steps is quicker, easier, less risky and reduces the dependence on willpower or motivation to make it happen. Celebrating tiny wins rewires our brain to want to do them again. You are much less likely to drop a tiny habit or behaviour on a bad day. And tiny habits and behaviours are insidious in cultures. Over time the collection of everyone’s tiny habits becomes your organisational culture.
The input to creating sustainable cultures of wellbeing is great human leadership, the output is great business.
“Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” Barack Obama
