Poor performance eats profits.
The role of wellbeing and its positive contribution to performance and growth in organizations is often undervalued and generally minimized. Yet still it presents a powerful strategy which can be harnessed to effectively transform behavior and optimize people, thereby increasing performance and profitability.
Organizations that optimize its people enable their collective wisdom to come alive. Whether working digitally or onsite, we define our lives through the work we do and want our collective human potential to be supported. And to do our work from our best selves, we need to be well. This is congregated around working purposefully in relationship to other key elements. Conversely, if employees are struggling or stressed, this behavior negatively impacts the overall corporate culture and its profits.
Wellbeing then bridges the performance and profitability gap.
Regrettably, leaders have approached the performance and profitability concern all wrong. Waiting until leaders and staff become stressed and burned out to provide interventions have little or no impact on its existence. They then will invest in ways to cope with stress without the awareness that the single biggest hindrance to optimized performance is stress in the first place.
The 2020 Intellhr strategic poll shows that 76% of human resource professionals listed wellbeing as a top priority while 50% are not implementing a wellbeing plan and 22% are not even monitoring it. Approximately 50% of responses came from human resource professionals in management and leadership roles. Still we also know from a 2019 Gallup study that organizations striving to promote wellbeing of all their people see more engagement, higher performance, and increased profits.
Not a Slogan
It’s unfortunate that senior business leaders and organizations promote the catchphrase– culture of wellbeing — as a marketing tool to attract and retain key players. Wellbeing is not a corporate slogan only for human resources to include in their wellness strategy. Wellbeing is also not a wellness program or is limited to physical health. Wellbeing needs to move beyond being a human resource initiative to being a business necessity.
More clearly, wellbeing is a mindset or attitude of a business. Wellbeing is a holistic view of what contributes to our positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning and accomplishments, and how these five essential elements of psychological wellbeing, along with physical health, interact together to provoke performance and growth. Hence organizations can use this model as a resource that help people discover and use new cognitive and emotional tools.
Because it’s a major driver in improving company culture, an authentic workplace wellbeing strategy will only work if the precedent comes from the top down. A psychologically and physically healthy workforce, starting with top key leaders, are more motivated, engaged and productive — ultimately leading to greater organizational profits.
The wellbeing, performance, and profitability connection
A Gallup study found clear connections in wellbeing levels among team members and between managers and those they manage. Because of the social environmental nature of the workplace, it’s easy for the wellbeing of one team to rub-off on another team. While wellbeing certainly shapes an individual’s performance, it can also influence the performance of colleagues around them.
But it cannot be assumed that the high wellbeing levels of some people automatically removes the low wellbeing levels in others. Steps should be taken to become corporately resilient and achieve high- performance. Enable psychological wellbeing in organizations and their leadership by promoting behaviors that entice optimal performance without experiencing stress. Here’s how this looks.
Trust. Trust is the foundation to engaging leadership. Build a history of experiences where people know they can always count on you. Your consistency allows them to take risks with both feet in because your future behavior is predictable. According to a Gallup study, a solid foundation of trust can lead to increased productivity, profitability, and lower turnover. In a Great Place to Work annual study, companies with trust factors experienced high stock market returns than the market average, lower turnover rates by 50% than industry competitors and increased levels of engagement, innovation, satisfaction, and agility.
Kinship. Kinship is about relationship. Show your honesty at being interested in the lives and welfare of others and providing attentiveness, support, and kindness every day. Share your mistakes, feelings, and successes. Stop second guessing others’ motives when they do something. Give them breathing room, taking them at face value instead of questioning why they do what they do.
Mentor. Mentoring is about working with employees in making decisions, solving problems, and developing skills. It is far more than just passing out assignments or telling someone what to do. Help your people to build upon their character strengths to reach their full potential.
With more and more businesses going virtual and employing work-at-home staffs, more than ever organizations should optimize performance wellbeing in its people if they want to sustain profits
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At DecisionLab, we are here to support you with operating an effective organization and reducing financial waste. We have worked with leaders at all levels to optimize performance, build strong leaders and modernize growth. You can start by identifying the causes of your own personal patterns. Download our free high-performance wellbeing exercises that build morale, improve communication, boost productivity and optimize growth.
