Part 1 defined employee well-being, described the effect of job demands and resources and made the case that diminished well-being takes a financial toll. What can a company do to reduce the individual and organizational harm that comes from diminished employee well-being? An organization’s initiatives must incorporate three levels of response:

  • First – Reduce the impact of workplace stressors
  • Second – Improve the way employees respond to sources of workplace distress
  • Third – Provide an array of benefits that help people weather work and work-life stressors and reestablish well-being.

First – Reduce the Impact of Stressors

Part 1 described how the balance of job demands and resources can lead either to distress or fulfillment. Working together, employees and their managers can modify jobs to shift the relative weights of demands and resources and improve support for well-being. Proactive employees and willing managers can accomplish this transformation by redesigning jobs along four basic lines:

  • Modifying tasks – People can redefine job boundaries by taking on more or fewer tasks or changing how they perform their work. Task-focused changes can address both positive and negative challenges – increasing the former, within reason, and decreasing the latter. For example, an experienced call center rep might introduce variety into his day by volunteering to train new hires in dealing with problem customers.
  • Acquiring resources – Employees can recruit more resources to help with job performance and buffer against stressors. For instance, an employee might ask for coaching from the manager, request help from peers or seek an upgrade in technology tools.
  • Expanding relationships – Interpersonal interactions can be modified: adding or changing cross-department contacts; establishing mentoring relationships; or expanding connections outside the organization. This happens, for example, when someone working in internal communications reaches out to counterparts in public relations to get new ideas for the company intranet.
  • Changing perceptions – An individual’s attitude toward the purpose of work can be redefined. For instance, the research and development head can reframe an R&D team member’s role as instrumental to achieving the organization’s revenue goals, rather than simply as churning out one new product idea after another.

As companies consider the profound effect job architecture has on workplace stressors, the manager’s role must be incorporated. To be sure, some managers are ignorant of or indifferent to the workplace distress that threatens employee well-being. In a survey by Grant Thornton, the accounting and consulting firm, a third of respondents said their manager is the most stressful part of their job. Alternatively, working together, individuals and managers can take direct action in response to some of the most powerful stressors in the workplace.

Second – Improve Employee Response to Sources of Workplace Distress

In the workplace, some stressors remain unavoidable, outside the direct influence of individuals and managers. When it becomes impossible or impractical to deflect or change stressors that compromise well-being, resilience comes into play.

Resilience is the ability to bounce back – not just to survive pressures but also to emerge stronger and more capable. Organizations aren’t resilient – people are. To boost collective resilience, an enterprise can increase the number of resilient people, enhance the resilience of each worker or (preferably) both. How to achieve those goals? Three ways: hiring people with proven resilience; training that increases resilience skills; and nurturing resilience as an effective response to stressors. See chapter 6 of my monograph entitled The Stress-Reduction Pyramid for more detail on these three strategies.

Third – Provide an Array of Benefits that Help People Weather Stressors and Reestablish Well-being

Implementation of a company-wide behavioral health strategy and action plan makes a statement about organizational support for employee well-being. Even before the pandemic, research and experience showed that rewards program priorities were shifting toward a greater focus on employee well-being. Respondents to the Willis Towers Watson 2020 COVID-19 Benefits Survey said that:

  • More than half planned to enhance well-being programs and focus on physical, emotional, financial and social well-being.
  • About one-third planned to make changes in health care plans
  • About one-fourth expected to modify caregiving benefits.

However, employers should not delude themselves into thinking that employees are fully ready to embrace more aggressive involvement in their health care. Whereas 56% of U.S. employers say their well-being programs have encouraged employees to live healthier lives, only 32% of employees agree. When asked how they respond to workplace stress, half or more of employees say they engage in physical activity, use relaxation techniques or seek support from family, friends and coworkers. Using services provided by employers or health plan providers falls to the bottom of the list.

None of this is to suggest that organization-level responses don’t have value or that they should not be part of a comprehensive well-being strategy. Rather, these health care delivery actions should function as a tertiary response, supporting but not substituting for efforts to address directly the causes of negative workplace stress and increase employees’ resilience to unavoidable workplace pressures.

What’s to be Gained? Competitive Advantage

Is all this focus on well-being aimed simply at creating kinder, gentler organizations? Nothing wrong with that, to be sure, but is it enough to justify the investment required in health plan changes, employee communication and manager training? What’s the ROI? Two words: competitive advantage. An organization that establishes a robust foundation for sustainable employee well-being can carve out an advantage by:

  • Reducing costs, as noted in Part 1, including health expense, which frees up funds for investments in other areas, such as innovation or capital improvements
  • Increasing productivity through increased employee energy and initiative
  • Cutting the cost of turnover, as employees choose to stay with an organization that manifestly cares about their well-being
  • Gaining a reputation as a fulfilling place to work, which can enhance recruiting success.

Competitive advantage is difficult to come by and even harder to sustain. A focus on improved employee well-being stands out as one of the few potential sources offering the promise of both increased productivity and reduced cost. Why delay in capitalizing on this competitive double-dip?