Happiness at work - how do we show we care?
September 20 to 25 is the international week of happiness at work, which aims to support organisations to prioritise the wellbeing of their people, because when people are happy at work and in life, they are more relaxed, more creative and more productive. There are so many definitions about what wellbeing actually is, and to the people of the UK, (surveyed by the UK national office of statistics) wellbeing covers these ten categories; 1) our natural environment, 2) personal wellbeing, 3) our relationships, 4) health, 5) what we do, 6) where we live, 7) personal finance, 8) the economy, 9) education and skills 10) governance.
It’s only natural that wellbeing encompasses all aspects of life, because we’re human and not just our job titles yet oftentimes, many organisations forget that fact and fall into the trap of prioritising profit over people, so we end up with shocking statistics about the state of our wellbeing and happiness in the workplace. Here’s a few for 2021:
600,000 workers reported stress, depression or anxiety caused by work
50% of all work-related ill health was caused by stress and anxiety
42% of employees have experienced a decline in their mental health since the pandemic
Aside from the metrics that organisations may measure to determine their employee wellbeing index, like sick days, turnover, absenteeism etc when I think about my own experiences of happiness at work, it comes down to one thing. Do I feel cared for by the organisation? Caring means feeling seen, heard, understood and valued. In the times when I have personally felt stressed, anxious, overwhelmed and burnout, was I able to share how I was feeling and was someone there to listen, empathise, and support me to find a way to manage my workload, priorities, deadlines, lack of resources, pressure from managers etc… or was I afraid to share how i felt for fear of being shamed and feel anxious about potentially losing my job if I show signs of struggle? The latter reaction was my normal for many years, which meant I’d talk myself into ignoring my needs, tell myself to be strong, continue to people please, compromise my boundaries, and pretend that everything is fine. It took a full-blown panic attack for me to finally recognise that the way I was behaving was unhealthy, and I was being so uncaring to myself.
So how do we create an organisational culture that cares? To me it comes down to having conversations that are REAL, i.e. authentic, vulnerable and meaningful. Imagine a space where people across the organisational hierarchy are openly sharing their struggles, both at work and in life. And through these sharing of stories, we’re giving each other permission to bring our whole-messy-complex selves to the table. We’re normalising mental-ill health and the many shades of what it means to be human. We’re resonating with another's experience, how they feel, empathising with their challenges, offering our loving presence, attention and support. In the same space, we’re acknowledging each other's bravery and trust in the space that we’ve created together and expressing gratitude for the big and small ways we’ve shown up for each other. We leave the space with stronger connections to each other, feeling like we’ve understood our colleagues deeper than before, having a sense of “we’re all in this together”, and that we do truly care about each other.
This isn’t a made-up fantasy of what is possible, it’s based on my own experiences of being in, creating and facilitating psychologically safe and inclusive spaces where we can practice active listening, deepen our empathy, show compassion and express our gratitude.
Here are some ideas to promote a culture of care and have meaningful conversations in your organisation:
Live Our Values Everyday: Talk about your values, what’s important about how we relate, collaborate and co-create. List them and then talk about what this actually looks like in practice. E.g. If you value ‘Relationships first’, you might agree to use the first 15 minutes of a meeting to chat about the things that make us human, before getting into the work.
Create a don’t do list: Talk about the opposite of the values - the things you don’t want to promote in your culture. What are the out of date policies, practices, or unspoken norms that need to change? E.g. Is there an unspoken expectation to reply to emails within 24 hours or have you normalised a constant sense of urgency?
Share challenges: Create a consistent space for people to openly talk about a challenge they are struggling with, both at work or at home, and support them to reflect on what they may need to navigate it. You could do this once a week during team meetings, or create an organisational-wide space for people to access.
Show gratitude: Make it a practice for team members to express their gratitude by thanking someone in the organisation, or show their admiration and appreciation for someone’s work, way of being, etc. You could also invite your team to reflect on an organisational value, and share an example of how someone has lived into it, as a way to model that it's our collective responsibility to create our culture and show each other that we care.