What is Wellbeing Washing?  It’s a term that describes a superficial wellbeing strategy, which is ‘all talk and no action’.  It originated from greenwashing, in which companies articulated a strategy that would have a positive impact on the environment when their actual actions were in complete conflict.  

Authentic wellbeing is the complete opposite.  It is when the welfare of employees is at the heart and soul of the business; it runs through the veins of the organisation.    
To ensure that you avoid wellbeing washing when you are embarking on developing a wellbeing programme, you must build an authentic strategy. Here are my top four tips to get you started.
 

Establish a wellbeing strategy that is practical and can evolve
Be clear on the organisation's wellbeing aspirations but be honest that perhaps there is work to do in achieving it. Ensure leaders are fully bought into wellbeing, and are prepared to invest in wellbeing strategies, and advocate behavioural and policy change to ensure that wellbeing is having a positive impact.
It is important to have the tools to know if your wellbeing strategy is effective. Identify KPIs, that you can track, measure and report on - these could include tracking when absence rates improve, morale improves and productivity increases.

Challenge your KPIs: if they look like they are improving, is that the case? The question is, has anything changed that could impact it? For example, absence rates improve for an area, but upon a closer look, the area is understaffed. It may be those employees feel committed to possibly working through sickness, when they are not feeling 100%, and as a result building up to burnout. 
 

Know what wellbeing initiatives are going to resonate with your employees right now and build agility to change your strategy as your employees needs change
Carry out an audit to understand what is impacting your employees right now, and ascertain how this differs by employee demographic, location, or business entity, and build a more targeted approach. Aligning different initiatives and communication programmes to the different wellbeing employee profiles will reinforce authenticity.

Be practical around what to make available - less is more! There may be a desire to have an all-encompassing wellbeing benefits programme, but quite often there is too much, which diminishes the impact. If you are going to invest in wellbeing benefits, then invest in the ones that are going to make the biggest difference to your employees and, as a result, to your business.  


Carry out a Wellbeing risk analysis.
By doing the above, you will have your wellbeing needs profiled with associated initiatives. Will the initiative address the wellbeing needs of your employees? What else is going on within the organisation that might derail intentions and work in conflict? For example:

• Financial education/salary drawdown initiatives - how effective will that be when the organisation is providing 0-hour contracts or paying at minimum wage? 
• Physical wellbeing initiatives when there is an expectation that employees work over and above their contracted hours and therefore don’t get to make their gym sessions, or that the working environment they are expected to work in is unsafe.
• Mental wellbeing benefits where bullying goes unnoticed, or staff do not know where to turn if they experience it, or work in a highly stressed environment.  

These will need to be called out with a two-pronged approach of tackling behaviours and engrained working practices, with a wellbeing philosophy in mind.  

Ensure it isn’t just an HR led initiative, leaders will have to be accountable in ensuring everything that impacts negatively on an employee’s wellbeing is noticed, understood, and addressed.  
 

Help your employees understand and access wellbeing strategies
A common issue with any form of benefits strategy is that it goes unnoticed. There may be a flurry of communications to announce a new policy or tangible benefit but remembering it at a time of need and understanding how it can help is quickly forgotten. Continually tracking wellbeing KPIs will allow for continued communication and reinforcement of the benefits if a clear correlation is understood between the KPIs progress and comms and accessibility. Quite often the connection is not always understood.  
Create a holistic and accessible approach. Brand it, pull all the fragmented benefits and policies into one place, and build a story. This allows employees to understand what is there, what level of support it could provide, and more importantly, allow for easy access for them and their family.

We all know that employee’s wellbeing is important, but the pandemic has more sharply focused minds on employees’ wellbeing and values. An exceptional customer experience can only be delivered by people who believe in their organisation’s purpose, and who feel they are valued by both management and customers. An organisation has a responsibility to ensure that they look after employee’s wellbeing whilst they are in their care, but also should be mindful that that negative wellbeing at work can impact home life and vice versa, all of which can have a negative impact on business performance and reputation. 

If you are going to embark on development or evolving an existing wellbeing strategy, ensure it is meaningful, that it fits with the culture, and that leaders are fully committed to tackling anything that can negatively impact employee’s wellbeing. If it comes from the top and there is a constant flow of communication or an informal conversation with employees, then it will keep wellbeing prominent and effective.

Wellbeing benefits do provide support and services for employees, but on their own they do not address the fundamental wellbeing issues. However, if you provide a more holistic approach to your wellbeing strategy, and if it is truly authentic, then you can certainly avoid the ‘wellbeing washing’ label.

If you would like to discuss employee wellbeing in more detail, please do contact me. Get in touch by calling 020 3457 0894 or email sarah.lardner@innecto.com.

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