Employee Wellness
Paper #3: Opportunity Exploration
by Limassol Zok
11/23 2015
In my quantitative research on employee wellness and from my interviews with employees and employers, several insights were uncovered that I present in this paper and follow with findings from group and individual ideation sessions
I. Focus > Purpose > Wellness Tradeoff
One of the insights I uncovered is the impact of the work focus or the purpose drivers on employees and employers wellness The type of focus and the sense of purpose of employees influences how they navigate their work life and what wellness tradeoffs they make in order to accomplish their goals I identified 4 types of purposedriven workers
The Martyrs: CauseDriven Employees
These employees love working towards the cause and practice high empathy. For example, Sarah, the strategy consultant, is highly driven by solving problems for leadership, and Elizabeth, the admissions director at a school for children on the autism spectrum in Manhattan, is highly driven by the kids. The energy that is inspired by the heightened sense of working towards a cause shifts the focus from the self to the others, hence causing them to work on the expense of their own mental, emotional, social and physical wellness. They often work long hours or feel drained by the end of the day.
Opportunities for Exploration
How might we allow employees to be able to stay focused on giving to the cause and working for the higher good and still be able to check in with themselves and attend to their own wellness when they can?
What if wellness was incorporated as part of the mandatory purpose a company envisions?
The Referees: Scorekeeping Employers
Employers in the client servicing industry operate two different forces: the clients and the employees According to the book Productivity, Supervision, and Morale in an office Situation by the Institute for Social Research University of Michigan, there are two types of supervisors: employeecentered supervisors and productioncentered supervisors. In my research findings, these scorekeeping employers are productioncentered and they heavily focus on meeting client’s billables and management’s number of expected sales deals. In fact love keeping track of their quantitative work goals and perceive productivity in relation to that. Their focus happens at the expense of their own wellness and the social wellness of their employees and the office itself.
Opportunities for Exploration
How might we help employers keep their focus on the client's needs and the higher goals of the business while attending to their own wellness and the wellness of their office?
The Checklist Tickers
These are employees who love work structure, get their energy from being regimented, having a sense of control over work, and enjoy ticking off their check lists The tradeoff is that
they end up getting stuck at the office until the mission gets accomplished, and feel that the ship will sink if they do not control the environment.
Opportunities for Exploration
How might we provide employees the sense of control in managing their tasks, as well as ample flexibility to attend to their wellness needs and let go of their sense of control when needed?
How might we provide employees with a sense of control outside the office as well?
The LifeHappens Employees
These employees are selfdriven They love attending to their personal life priorities and accomplish what they need to at work While they seem to have figured out completely their work life balance and their own self wellness, the fact is that they do end up taking work home which hinders their disconnection from work when they are in their personal time and space.
Opportunities for Exploration
How might we allow for the fluidity of time and space and the flexibility of work structures to not cause a spillover between work priorities and life priorities? How might we think of priorities differently to cater for our wellness?
What if we can magically switch focus between life and work as needed?
II Worklife Structure > Wellness Tradeoff
By mapping out the daily work life journeys of employees and employers, I have found three types of work journeys: the dynamic employer, the regimented workplace, and the flexible startup
The Dynamic Employer
The dynamic peopledriven employers greatly enjoy the flexibility of time and place around their job requirements Their days look very different every day and they navigate their worklife between meeting people, talking in hallways, going to events for work, networking, emailing, and working on their desks. Sabrina, the mother of two, is able to attend to her different life priorities due to this flexibility and David, the partner attorney, enjoys mixing friendship with clients.
Opportunities for Exploration
How can we help employers engage their employees in a similarly dynamic lifestyle? How can dynamism be integrated into lives of employees who have different work requirements and deliverables, and need to meet billable deliverables, tough clients, and a high workload?
The Regimented Workplace
At their workplace, their employees navigate a very different work lifestyle They work a 96 job and are expected to be at their office spaces within that time frame Their employees match with most other employees that I had interviewed who enjoy the collaboration they have with their colleagues while at the same time suffer the rush hour in the morning, have lunch at their desks on most days, and are too tired by the end of the day to indulge in wellness
activities, that is if they leave the office on time. David specifically mentioned that he wished his employees had stronger interpersonal skills and socialized with others. The structure was creating a barrier to wellness that is worth uncovering Opportunities for Exploration
At a workplace where structure is necessary, how might we help alleviate the pain points around commute, lunch time, and after work hours?
How might we help employees enjoy the rush hour or avoid it and still get their work done one time?
How might we help employees disconnect over lunch and enjoy a healthy sharing social experience before going back to work?
How might we help employees not stay long hours at work and take work home?
The Flexible Startup
The third category that I found through my interviews are the small teams who operate on flexible time and space configurations. They work from different spaces throughout the day, from a dedicated work space and from different cafes in the city and generally had access to the choice of attending to their wellness, whether they acted on that choice on not. They enjoyed social lunches and got other life priorities done when they needed to. This configuration relied heavily on communication, trust, transparency, a balance of friendly informality with professional formality The tradeoff was that if they were unable to manage their time and workload, they easily took work home and expressed that they sometimes wished they had a fixed workstation that they called theirs Opportunities for Exploration
How might we learn from the flexible startup and apply the learnings to the employees different needs for flexibility and structure?
How might we reinvent the workplace structure to meet employees needs?
How might we provide a personal fixed work staion for each employee and still provide flexibility for navigating time and space during the work day?
Ideation: Opportunities for Exploration in the Work Structure Space
I held an ideation workshop with various participants: fulltime employees and design strategy graduate students and the thoughts emerged in the below What Ifs. Opportunities for Exploration
What if work and life are designed by each person to cater for their own priorities, needs, and lifestyles, while at the same time allowing for the whole organism to function well?
What if employees could work anywhere anytime and still meet their work requirements?
What if there were no quantitative measures of productivity?
What if employees can collaborate and take the lead on their own work life?
What if employees can decide on what they need to do, when they need to do it, and how?
What if employers can read employees minds and moods and commit to client tasks and manage time accordingly?
What if clients can communicate with employees and plan the work together?
What if clients and employees work are at the same page and yet in their own work lifestyles at the same time?
What if, with one button, employees can access a work and time structure and exit it into flexibility, alternating between both modes as needed?
III. On Acknowledgement
From my previous interviews, I found that some employees need to feel acknowledged in order to feel well at work.
I interviewed Christopher Littlefield, organizational behavior expert and founder of AcknowledgementWorks, a company that focuses on training managers in the essential skills and tools to enhance employee morale and motivation and to foster positive organizational culture through the practice of acknowledgment, recognition, and praise Chris has found that in order for people to work best, they need to know how to acknowledge each other This consists of a few steps For giving acknowledgement, it is crucial to understand what the other wants to be acknowledged for He says that sometimes we think we know what others want to be acknowledged for or that we acknowledge them for what we observe of their actions However, strong power lies in opening channels for effective listening and true care and by asking people what they think they did great in As for receiving acknowledgment, his research shows that many people do not know how to receive it and do not think they deserve it
Why do people want to be acknowledged?
According to participants in the ideation session, acknowledgment is necessary because it makes them feel loyal, valued, respected, feel that they are a part of a family, proud, validated, comfortable, and get a sense of how they are doing. They need to feel that the employer values their future and not just the future of the company. “I need to feel valuable, not just another cog in the machine” said Mariela. “It needs to be genuine and on time, not scheduled in a weekly meeting, and not a tactic to get more work on an employee's shoulders ” For acknowledgement
to be effective, intrinsic motivators need to be present to start with. Acknowledgement is an extrinsic motivator that credits the internal ones and then it is a virtuous cycle.
What if there was a company podcast of all acknowledgments from employees to each other for positive reinforcement?
What if employees arrived in the morning and a video popped up on their screen of positive motivational quotes, songs, or talks?
What if employers knew exactly who of the employees needs what acknowledgement, when and how?
What if there was an acknowledgeometer that measures, regulates, customizes, and delivers acknowledgement to people when they need it most and how they need it?
What if people were so open and generous in giving acknowledgment to others?
What if people were accepting of others acknowledgments and take them positively and to heart, accepting their self worth?
What if employees can feel fully satisfied without needing acknowledgment?
What if there were no hidden agendas in employers praising employees works?
What if there was a roundtheofficeclock poll on how everyone is doing?
What if people’s wellness states are apparent and communicated for best management of work at an office space? (imagine the stock market graphs for employees feelings).
Communication for Wellness
According to Chris, unlike the golden rule of treating people the way we want to be treated, he believes that the platinum rule applies better which promotes treating people the way they want to be treated It is essential for people to understand each other’s needs, learn about each other, and ask the question: What is it that works for you? For a design startup in Lebanon, he formulated a norming sheet, which consists of a big sheet of paper where every employee and employer expresses their biggest pet peeve and talk about how they would like to communicate and be communicated with He explains that when a company gets busy, people need to know how to best communicate in order to prevent potential company crises
He has started an employee engagement mobile app called Hppy which competes in the same market space as the mobile apps Tiny Pulse and Office Vibes. The challenge in his app which he sells on a membershipbased model to employers is to get the employees to actually engage with it.
Christopher Littlefield, Founder of Hppy and AcknowledgmentWorks
References
Morale and Motivation: How to Measure Morale and Increase Productivity by Franklin Watts, (Alexander Hamilton Institute Incorporated, 1984)
Productivity, Supervision, and Morale in an office Situation by Daniel Katz, Nathan Maccoby, and Nancy Morse, (The Institute for Social Research University of Michigan, 1950)
Coaching People: Expert Solutions to Everyday Challenges by Patty McManus (Harvard Business School Press, 1992)
www acknowledgementworks com
Employee Engagement Platforms www.officevibe.com www.gethppy.com www.Officevibes.com www.tinypulse.com
Wellness Programs Platforms www lifedojo com
