Context matters: three questions to ask

This resource is part of the Guidance for better workplace wellbeing

It sets out how to apply the five principles for workplace interventions to improve wellbeing in your specific context.

Evidence shows that there are three questions to consider when implementing workplace health and wellbeing programmes.

1. Where are you now?

What are the social norms on health and wellbeing in your workplace? What organisational processes and systems might be helping, or holding back, the wellbeing of different staff members? What’s your capacity and knowledge to deliver health and wellbeing programmes? What are the specific labour market conditions your organisation is facing, and how might these relate to employee wellbeing?

2. What does improved and embedded wellbeing look like in your workplace? 

What structures and processes might make the programme easier to implement? What attempts are there to change the organisational culture, for example establishing health and wellbeing steering committees or other governance structures? How is evaluation built in to all projects, and how will the results be shared?

3. How can you sustain wellbeing in your workplace?

What tangible changes to how people work and to workplaces will lead to lasting and positive wellbeing effects?

These three questions – and the issues they raise – are interconnected. Changes in one area can lead to changes in others. From the evidence we have drawn out five principles of communication, coherence, commitment, consistency and creativity that underpin success in each area.

Asking about your current context is the starting point for determining what is, and is not, possible or desirable. These contextual factors can include social norms and attitudes to health and wellbeing initiatives by key stakeholder groups, including front line workers, middle and senior managers, occupational health and human resource professionals.

Favourable and unfavourable norms, attitudes, and capabilities

But it can also include an organisation’s existing capabilities to implement workplace wellbeing initiatives. Norms, attitudes and capabilities can be favourable or unfavourable. Favourable examples include: people who are already motivated and able to make changes. Unfavourable examples include people who are:

• cynical about wellbeing, or the intentions of managers
• lacking in confidence or resources to make changes.

Other factors to consider in your context

These include any of the following.

• Competing priorities or logics, such that enhancing health and wellbeing at work is perceived to be in conflict with business priorities.
• Heavy workloads.
• The existence of business processes and systems that make it challenging to deliver workplace health and wellbeing initiatives. For example, regulations or existing technologies that constrict what is possible, or a geographically-distributed workforce.
• Shocks – unexpected events that could derail plans to improve health and wellbeing – such as take-overs and unexpected downturns in organisational performance.

Unfavourable context does not mean impossible

Although workplace health and wellbeing programmes are more likely to succeed in favourable contexts, the evidence we reviewed indicates that starting with an adverse context is not necessarily a barrier to success.

There is evidence that it is possible to overcome adverse contextual factors. Simply making positive and tangible changes can lead to shifts in attitudes and improved capabilities. Collecting evidence and using evidence based arguments, leveraging senior manager support and establishing inclusive steering groups can also help improve capabilities and shift attitudes.

Practical examples of adapting approaches to your context

Please click on any organisation to read their case study in full.

• Taking a ‘light touch’ approach

Morgan Sindall Construction and Infrastructure’s approach to wellbeing is highly sensitive to the fact that the workforce take on and adopt new ideas. This happens through seeing others leading by example, showing success and opening conversations.

Fundamental to this is the business’ ‘light touch’ approach rather than being too directive. This encourages workers to engage because they want to. This approach extends to flexible working changes, which are deliberately informal. It also translates to low profile launches of wellbeing and health-related technology, such as fatigue bands.

• Using staff forums and spaces for wellbeing feedback

The company keep informed of workforce needs through communication activities: these predominantly take place at the workplace, such as wellbeing forums, walkabouts, voice schemes and the launch of ‘engagement discussion’ cards. Here, the big messages about what the company is trying to convey are used to trigger discussions and identify improvements. This constant dialogue helps to:

• highlight knowledge and action gaps
• Identify what works best to engage workers in wellbeing

In this way, the company encourages the use of preventive support and services.

• Getting widespread support and buy-in

Tailoring their approach specifically to the nature of the workforce, meant creating space and opportunities for workers to talk through wellbeing. This would bring benefits in itself, as well as improving uptake of preventive support and services.

Observing role modelling by early adopters and senior leaders as well as external recognition. Coverage in the business press, word of mouth communication and peer-to-peer success stories were all seen as key to build support for the approach from other managers and workers.

A bit of patience, a bit of looking at some of the role models and your starting point being the people who get it. And then others watch and follow.

A raft of communications channels generate the narrative that the company prioritises workforce wellbeing. Regular cascade meetings, team talks and posters along with large-scale campaigns, leaflets and the intranet, raise awareness and show what is available for workers to help themselves, such as external resources.

These communications are augmented with quarterly roadshows by the senior management team who open up about their own mental health issues. This encourages workers to be more open about their own wellbeing challenges and experiences.

Similarly, the company runs facilitated sessions in which workers are split into small groups to share their own wellbeing stories. ‘Time to talk’ days are held, where mental health advocates are available at lunchtime for coffee and confidential chats, along with lots of leaflets and videos showing about the different sources of formal help if people want it.

The emphasis is on an informal light-touch approach, so people can engage as much or as little as they want, under-pinned by persistence. Morgan Sindall Construction & Infrastructure’s approach is paying dividends in terms of workers feeling more comfortable to improve their own wellbeing in the workplace environment:

we had an extended sort of toolbox talk about mental health and wellbeing at the end…It was an open invitation, it wasn’t a you must come to this, so I would say the vast majority of people actually attended that…. It’s difficult in this kind of environment because it is a bit of a macho world still and I think it’s going to take a while to break that down.

But it was interesting that they split us up into small groups – literally 3/4 people and we sat in a corner and I can talk quite freely now about my own problems. I don’t drone on about it, I will listen to other people. But if the right circumstances arose then I wouldn’t be ashamed or frightened to sort of share my experience.

Resolve, a regional accounting and advisory firm, secured buy-in from senior management through evidence-informed arguments:

Obviously, it’s a firm of accountants, so I went to the partners with the numbers, and when they looked at things like the absence rate, the staff turnover rate, engagement scores, things like that, you know, that produces a compelling argument to do something.

And the first thing I got the partners to do, was commit to a wellbeing commitment…and said, look, if you say you’re not going to sign up to this, you’re saying that you don’t care about the wellbeing of your people. And I think it was the realisation, I think they all knew.

Although formal mechanisms – like employee forums and surveys – are used to refine and improve the wellbeing activities at Resolve, the presence and approachability of managers and senior managers is also key.

Employees at all levels are seen as equal in influencing how wellbeing is delivered with a range of seniority and roles represented at forums. Leaders and managers also act as role models, one notable example being a senior partner who has delivered mediation and mindfulness workshops to staff.

For me, actually listening to someone who is of partner level, or of manager level, speak about perhaps the struggles they have and the way that they have dealt with pressures and stress and taking time for themselves, that for me I think is a big thing.

Embedding and improving processes can be seen as the infrastructure that brings together the separate initiatives that make up a workplace health and wellbeing programme. Ultimately, these support the longevity of the programme. Included here are:

• formal wellbeing committees and steering groups – which should be inclusive of all relevant stakeholders and responsive to their concerns
• learning processes, such as surveys, regular workshops and focus groups, that will enable the programme to adapt to changing circumstances or local conditions
• roles for senior managers to support the programme through public endorsement, resourcing and communicating how health and wellbeing sit with core business values or challenging existing norms and creating news one
• planning processes and plans, that may contain information on how different activities are to be sequenced, communication plans, how the governance structures will work and the procedures for capturing learning and adapting.

Practical examples of embedding and improving wellbeing in your context

Please click on any organisation to read their case study in full.

• Developing a wellbeing steering group

At Assure, an international law firm, The Health and Wellbeing Steering Group are a pivotal governance structure. Their priority is to sense check on the decision-making about what to take forward on a firm-wide basis. They also examine whether plans meet the aims of being realistic, inclusive and transparent.

The group provide a coherent framework of priorities around which initiatives on local (and internal communities) actions coalesce. This involves:

• co-ordinating the different activities within the three wellbeing pillars
• sharing knowledge to support organisational learning on what’s working and what’s not,
• prioritising financial investment in activities and resources that have inclusive and global reach.

Feedback from Assure’s annual consolidated benefit-provider meetings, as well as the management information received from their benefit-providers, helps them choose which initiatives to focus on.

• Developing interest groups for employees

Assure also provide the chance for employees to set up and seek out ‘interest’ groups to which they may feel that they belong. These interest groups are strongly employee-driven, cross-firm, community-based networks. Because of this, they provide Assure with valuable knowledge around issues that employees are engaging with. Examples of the networks include:

• LGBT+ and allies network
• disability and wellbeing network
• female futures
• family support network (with subgroups for circumstances such as working fathers)
• FREE – a network for faith, race, ethnicity and equality.

Each of the networks is accessible through fellow employees or via wellbeing events. When joining a network, the organisation has charge codes that staff can use to indicate they are spending time devoted to supporting the activities of a particular network.

Each network is linked directly to Assure’s Responsible Business webpages. These have information; business plans; details of who the chairs are; key events that they’ve been part of; and external groups they support. This enables employees to decide if they want to get involved and how, making sure joining and taking part in the networks is easy and accessible.

[these groups get started] usually it’s just from one or two people that have an interest, a personal interest that’s generally where it starts from.  I mean these networks have been around for a lot of years now so you know there’s the LGBT one that’s been around since 2007 and that got off the ground because there was just about six people I think that were all based in London at the time that decided that it was something we should be doing. 

So that and it’s been a very similar practice for most of them you know a few key people that are you know have brought a personal vested interest that think that we need something and they’ve approached various people within the business and it’s been driven from them.  Or centrally as a team we’ve looked at any gaps or anywhere we think where there isn’t representation for people that maybe requires the network. And we’ve maybe then gone out and approached specific people and said you know would you be interested in leading this and it’s kicked off the ground from there.

The networked communities are vitally important: they provide visible and tangible points of contact that can be drawn upon to help Assure sense-check ‘top-down’ or centralised initiatives. Representatives from the groups are also invited into formal decision-making. For example, committees or steering groups, which provides a means for Assure to co-create resources and actions with users. This means the whole approach to community presence and mobilisation has been an important element in informing and shaping of Assure’s wellbeing resources and frameworks.

The strong ethos of inclusivity embedded in the organisational DNA is highly visible. It manifests in the range of communities that exist within the organisation; and how these communities are actively involved within the wellbeing agenda.

Specifically, ASSURE’s activities on wellbeing actively embrace feedback and ideas from across the disability and wellbeing network, HR, the responsible business team, facilities team, reward & compensation team, agile working taskforce, LGBT+ network. Global inclusivity is also important given the international nature of the business.

• Developing direction-setting and decision-making structures

Harbour, a large and diverse property business, have set in place direction-setting and decision-making structures to enable a strategic approach to wellbeing. They do this while also providing the means for co-creation and learning across the group.

Harbour instigated their approach by bringing together three functional areas that they saw as essential to the wellbeing agenda.

1. Human Resources coordinate the wellbeing approach, as well as integrating wellbeing into its strategy for engagement and productivity.
2. Health and Safety lead the wellbeing agenda, provide regulatory and subject matter expertise. They also learn from a mature safety climate at Harbour that could be leveraged in the wellbeing approach.
3. Corporate Estates lead physical spaces and locations as a key wellbeing area to address flexible and transient working patterns, provide social and quiet areas as well as exercise spaces.

Through a collaborative approach, Harbour devised a wellbeing strategy that bases itself on two key elements. The group’s social values of ‘Spirit’ (Support, Positive, Innovation, Respect, Integrity and Togetherness), are well established. They provide a common frame of reference and guide for wellbeing approaches throughout the group.

Aligned to these values, the health and wellbeing strategy has been split into five ‘pillars’ which can each stand alone as a commitment:

• employee physical wellbeing
• employee mental wellbeing
• employee safety
• place-making
• customer wellbeing.

The pillars provide a holistic wellbeing framework for action planning; building a common understanding of Harbour’s wellbeing priorities and plans. They also act as a checkpoint for decision-making and wellbeing initiative development.

We’re that kind of organisation I think it’s just it always feels like there’s a very strong sort of internal community and a very definite buy-in to the values that we have. And that is very mature within the organisation and everybody would be able to recite them, everybody knows what they are and by and large everybody lives those values.  So because they’re all bound up in the sort of softer side of business I guess, the concept of wellbeing and, perhaps not much investing in wellbeing but very much being aligned to the idea of it, it’s not a difficult sell.

The wellbeing strategy evolved through constant communication, detailing and championing over-arching ideas that fit the ethos of Harbour as a whole.

Decision-making bodies provide formal linkages between the group and subsidiaries. For example, the wellbeing strategy development was undertaken through the Group People Leadership Team, which includes functional leads as well as business partners from the larger subsidiaries.

Meanwhile, the Group People Strategy Steering Group comprises representatives from all of the subsidiary businesses, who work together to co-create wellbeing products for the greater good of the group and to drive strategy through the wider group. The effect of this two-pronged  approach is that the subsidiary businesses feel supported in their wellbeing approaches, benefit from shared learning so are not having to constantly reinvent the wheel, can showcase their best practice to benefit the group and champion new wellbeing initiatives.

In line with the Innovative SPIRIT values outlines above, ideas for wellbeing initiatives are encouraged and often run through the low-risk approach of piloting, which encourages innovation. Subsidiaries are supported in championing initiatives to plug gaps in wellbeing provision. For example, Able Futures: a free mental health support service run through the UK government Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) for employees who would not otherwise qualify for early intervention provision. This is being adopted group-wide.

Group-led external service provision also provides consistency and this drives coherence through a range of wellbeing services offered to subsidiaries. For example, the group-wide use of an external service provider’s early intervention programme helps provide tools for managers and detailed work plans to support work adjustment plans and phase return to work plans.

Aligned with their proactive approach to ideas and innovations, Harbour also adopts an evaluative approach to its external wellbeing service providers, reviewing provision to ensure it fits Harbour’s wellbeing ethos whilst also providing value for money. This involves switching providers where needed and co-developing service provision and metrics to assess progress in support of Harbour’s strategy.

I think that’s probably one of the fundamental things that we’ve found that to make sure that we are talking and regularly talking because people’s needs and thoughts are changing quite rapidly as the environment changes and technology changes around us.

Harbour’s strategy is designed to set out a blueprint for the group’s commitment to wellbeing in the next three years and beyond.

Part of the wellbeing strategy is to start to ensure that when policies that exist in other parts of the organisation come up for review and when business plans are being generated then wellbeing has to be a mandatory part of those 2 processes.  So when we’re looking at any policy at all it doesn’t matter what it is, wellbeing has to, should be looked at as part of that policy review and that could be customer wellbeing course or it could be internal that’s wellbeing as far as working hours are concerned or resourcing whatever.

Sustaining improvements in wellbeing is typically seen as the end goal. But improving wellbeing also changes the workplace culture, so it has a bearing on contextual factors that make up your current situation that can make continuous improvement in wellbeing easier. Some of the issues to consider here include the following.

• Changes to the roles of occupational health or human resource professionals to enable implementation of activities connected to the health and wellbeing programme.
• Activities that make up the programme themselves, so they are seen as fresh, novel and/or enticing by those participating in the programme.
• Making tangible changes to workplaces so that people can see visible progress.
• Changes leading to improvements in health and wellbeing – either through intended or unexpected routes. For example, group health promotion activities can sometimes promote healthier life-styles and also foster improved social relationships.

Having in place learning processes – see section on embedding and improving – can help capitalise on unexpected routes to progress and to make adaptations so changes happen.

Practical examples of sustaining wellbeing in your context

Please click on any organisation to read their case study in full.

• Leading a culture shift

A cultural shift at Abbottswood Lodge, in the care sector, was driven by the home’s manager. This manager had previous experience of witnessing how a lack of understanding and devaluing staff capabilities could have a toxic effect on workplace relations. It led to the formation of cliques among workers, which in turn negatively influenced the quality of care.

Abbottswood Lodge’s approach was to clarify that acceptance and support is a keystone of their workplace culture, with a zero-tolerance policy for disrespectful, negative behaviour. Recognising that if senior managers do not feel supported that will filter down, managers and senior staff were identified as key role models and actors in underpinning a positive culture.

…a lot of the time maybe it starts from managers not feeling supported in care homes as well I think, so they’re not able to give that support are they to their staff…

• Prioritising staff development over retention

Abbottswood Lodge recognised that the care sector offers limited opportunities for personal and career development, whether in the care sector or outside it. At Abbottswood Lodge, progression is prioritised over staff retention, although this approach may result in staff moving on to new roles outside of the organisation. This is because it was recognised that high turnover was already an issue in the sector. So, by promoting training and personal development, Abbottswood motivate early career staff who wanted to train and progress, and create a more positive working environment for those staff who are later in their career.

It does this while supporting them to develop and take on-going learning opportunities. The value placed in training and progression by Abbottswood Lodge recognises the reality that there is only so much room to progress in a small organisation, and when staff do leave it is seen as a positive reflection on the organisational environment.

So I have tried with the staff to tell them all how much they’re capable of and they can achieve more and it does sometimes result in obviously somebody leaving to do something better but I’ve always said I’ve not got an issue with that. I’ve never had somebody leave to do a like for like job in another care home and I probably would question what was going on if they did … if people are made to feel capable and sort of respected and valued then…  It’s the same for all of us isn’t it? And a lot of care homes, that doesn’t happen with carers…

The approach brings benefits to residents as staff are able to bring their interests and skills into activities, such as art and craft workshops, which involve both the employees and the residents. A supportive culture and attention to staff development means that employees are both empowered to shape their own work environment: they have the skills and capabilities to make improvements for themselves, instead of simply following pre-defined tasks and roles.

That’s changed a lot over the years, before we were just a number we were just a staff member we weren’t allowed to have opinions or anything like that. We didn’t, we weren’t involved in the day to day running of the place… But now since the manager started, which is I think six years we have been encouraged to take day to day things and if we can think of a better way of doing something, we then discuss it and we put it into practice. And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t but as they always say we won’t know until we try. So we are all involved in the day to day running of the place really.

• Using the appraisal process to create sustainability

At Graham – a medium sized construction firm – change came in the form of replacing the traditional appraisal process that managers’ and employees’ feedback indicated was an unhelpful ‘tick box’ exercise.

First, a personal development programme, called CONNECT, was introduced to replace the existing appraisal process. CONNECT was underpinned by the concept of ‘Whole Person Development’.

CONNECT was actually about getting managers and employees to sit down and talk to each other, to build relationships and understand where that person was trying to go. The company’s ambition was to try and marry those two together. Essentially, it was about starting to have meaningful conversations which weren’t really happening before. There was a feeling, that because people were so busy the previous standard appraisal system had become a box ticking exercise.

Initially, a multi-disciplinary team of health and wellbeing specialists was established by the HR department. It was tasked with creating innovative approaches to staff wellbeing. This initial work generated:

• a wellbeing framework or strategy document for the Graham offices and sites
• the creation of new roles – Wellbeing Champions
• a set of resources for employees and managers that would be easily accessed on an intranet hub.

Investors in People (IIP) was engaged to ensure an independent assessment of the new ‘Wellbeing’ approach, and provided identifiable audit parameters and challenging targets to aspire to.

The IIP accreditation process, and the wellbeing standard, were important bridging points for bringing a coalition of resources into focus and shaping the Graham approach. CONNECT was the first large-scale people management process change that then followed as a means of integrating wellbeing concerns within the day-to-day management process. It was important in preparing the mind-set of both managers and employees, as well as the skills/capabilities of managers and employees to best utilise the wellbeing resources available to them.

• Empowering managers to support staff

Ensuring managers felt comfortable talking to and supporting individual employee wellbeing was fundamental to the success of Graham’s wellbeing strategy. This was instigated with the initial ‘CONNECT’ personal development programme.

‘Standard’ appraisals were replaced with a combination of formal and informal ‘CONNECT commit’ meetings with managers. These identified and developed personal goals. This process generally began with a formally allocated meeting. It was generally followed up with informal ‘chats’ as a proactive approach to development in the workplace. Staff were encouraged to identify and seek out training opportunities, which the company would support.

HR reminders and signposting to intranet educational tools and information resources further supported managers and employees. The programme explored the adjustment of work placements to enable employees to be closer to home or even work from home if their job permitted it. Graham also made healthier dietary options more readily accessible on all offices and sites.

CONNECT+ provided an extension to this ‘whole person’ perspective by incorporating employee wellbeing using a wellbeing diagnostic tool and coaching leading to personalised wellbeing plans and resources.

“Connect+ is centred on the concept of whole person development. So, if you are going to be the best version of yourself and if you are going to be the most productive successful person, you have got to have the right skills to do the job. You have got to have the right behaviours or resilience and you have got to be physically and mentally well. Therefore, only when those three things are working at their maximum are you going to be at your best. You can’t act on one, you have got to focus on all three.”

A team of leading external wellbeing specialists was engaged to train managers and to provide specialist health and coaching input. The resulting programme consists of four core elements.

1. An easy to use personal diagnostic tool – this provides personality diagnostics that identify the employee’s personality and behavioural style preferences: dominant, influencer, steady and compliant (DISC). Its aim is to provide the employee with insight into their own preferences and how this impacts on how they like to be treated and valued by line managers and colleagues. This is generally delivered through a one-day workshop. The employee can then voluntarily share that information with their line manager as part of the CONNECT discussions.
2. Personal coaching – employees are assigned a coach who interprets the diagnostic and spends time understanding the challenge they face. Coaches support the employee to develop a practical plan and techniques/tools to support the employee make changes.
3. Integration with CONNECT – line managers are trained to interpret the DISC personality profile and how to use it in the context of a CONNECT meeting to support work productivity, teamwork, leadership and communication. The information from DISC is aimed at helping managers to better understand their line reports and provide more effectively tailored development plans.
4. Wellbeing diagnostic – employees are offered the opportunity (and take up has been high) to take part in a wellbeing diagnostic service which requires the individual to wear physical health monitoring equipment for a week.

The data is overseen by external health experts who then provide a confidential meeting with the employee and provide feedback on their heart-rate, blood pressure and other health indicators and discuss a tailored plan to help the employee achieve change. Supplementing this, the employee can then access additional wellbeing experts to support individual wellbeing needs e.g. nutrition, exercise, or sleep.