Improving Workplace Wellbeing - Vlog with Dr Sarah Taylor
Why workplace wellness isn't working and what to do about it
Our latest Teachappy vlog features workplace wellbeing expert, Dr Sarah Taylor. She is the author of The Wellbeing Paradox - a book we read this summer which had us absolutely hooked.
In The Wellbeing Paradox, Sarah explores the idea that workplaces have never focused so much on staff wellbeing with various interventions, policies, apps and wellbeing programmes, but workplace wellbeing hasn't really improved. In fact, these interventions sometimes make things worse! And this is the wellbeing paradox.
The issue is partly because we mistakenly take a 'mechanistic' view of wellbeing where we
see it as something to 'fix'. For example, staff are saying in surveys that they are stressed, so
we try and fix that issue by giving them a mindfulness app to lower their stress. Instead, she recommends workplaces take a 'living systems' approach to wellbeing. This is where we acknolwedge that workplaces are made up of living organisms (humans) that interact with other living organisms (our colleagues) in an eco-system (the workplace). When we view wellbeing from this perspective, we more accurately see that staff wellbeing is messy, deeply personal, interconnected and resistant to quick fixes. With a living systems approach to wellbeing, rather than senior leaders having to plan and execute the perfect wellbeing initiative from the top down, instead, staff are empowered to take ownership of their own wellbeing and initiate experiements to see what may or may not work for them. Wellbeing becomes an 'adaptive challenge'.
In our chat, we also explored lots of ideas but especially the concept of the 'cult of adjustment'. This is where we pile more and more onto staff with the expectation that they will be more 'resilient' and learn to cope better. In her book, Sarah explains, "A person can adapt perfectly to an unhealthy environment - learning to tolerate what what shouldn't be tolerated, to nomrlaise what shouldn't be normal." I see this a lot in school settings and in The Wellbeing Paradox, Sarah argues that we can challenge the cult of adjustment. As individuals, but ideally finding some 'partners in crime' to support us, we can start working differently, in healthier, more sustainable and satisfying ways.
I think where Sarah's book is really powerful is getting the reader to stop and reflect on what we have normalised in the workplace and to question whether that normal way of
working is the most effective way to get the best out of people. In the vlog, she explains that in public services, it now seems to be the norm to 'go above and beyond' which is a really risky strategy in terms of people's capacity to cope. It is unhealthy workplace narratives like this we need to question and pushback on.
In was great to speak with Dr Saray Taylor and you can watch the full interview below which should provide you with lots of food for thought about how we can really start to improve workplace wellbeing.
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