In the workplace, noneconomic factors influence work satisfaction and profitability. It is therefore important that organizations, as well as nations, monitor the well-being of workers, and take steps to improve it.
Martin Seligman, the globally recognised expert and proponent of Positive Psychology, has spent many years investigating the impacts of positive emotions and wellbeing on and in the individual and the people surrounding the individual. Breakthroughs in neuroscience are showing those impacts with hard science and evidence.
However, because we are social animals, no matter how much we put in the effort individually to take responsibility for all aspects of our wellbeing, we are heavily impacted by the social contexts around us. If our family, community, workplace or nation have systemic structures, habits or attitudes that ignore or devalue individual wellbeing, our personal levels are affected.
In a paper called Beyond Money published in 2004 Seligman and Diener made the case for organisations and nations to add wellbeing measurements to progress along with Gross Domestic Product (GDP) which is ‘is the final value of the goods and services produced within the geographic boundaries of a country during a specified period of time’. This measure looks at the growth (or not) of the value over time to assess a nation’s wealth and productivity.
What they noted was that despite GDP growth of the wealthiest nations increasing over the last 50 years, their life satisfaction was either stagnating or going backwards and when you add figures for depression and anxiety, those rates have increased 50 fold, yes 50.
Since the early 2000s, governments, the UN and other organisations are paying attention to how measures of wellbeing can be added to public policy. The Gallup World Poll has now been tracking the progress of human development for twenty years and those objective data have contributed to The World Happiness Report that ranks 156 countries by how happy their citizens are. Interestingly, the top 10 wealthiest nations are lower on the happiness index, and in some cases very low.
A number of countries eg New Zealand have recently added wellbeing to their legislative processes so that systemic changes need to take into account their social impact as well as economic.
Organisations that are not embracing this research to examine and adapt their structures and work practices to increase wellbeing are squandering the potential of their workforces to be higher performing and increasingly productive. People who have high wellbeing levels are proven to:
· Perform better at work
· Have more satisfying relationships
· Be more cooperative
· Have stronger immune systems
· Have better physical health
· Live longer
· Have reduced cardiovascular mortality
· Have fewer sleep problems
· Have lower levels of burnout
· Have greater self-control
· Have better self-regulation and coping abilities
· Be more prosocial
The evidence is in. However, organisations need to fearlessly examine their structures and cultures to ensure that wellbeing is not lip service or superficial but that all people and non-people systems are assessed based on their impact on wellbeing as well as efficiency, commerciality and profitability. That’s the challenge but the possibilities are exciting!
For ideas about how your company can truly embrace wellbeing strategies, you can find resources and ideas here.
