How can organizations reconcile the drive for high productivity with the imperative of maintaining employee well-being and work-life balance?

Matt Smead, a business psychologist recognized as a leading thinker by HR Magazine in 2023, shares his insights on wellbeing, engagement, and resilience in a corporate setting.

🌟 We get into the significance of promoting health and wellbeing in the workplace, focusing on the balance between productivity and work-life balance. He emphasizes the importance of addressing psychosocial risks, promoting psychological health and safety, and adopting a risk-based approach in addressing potential hazards.

The discussion also touches on the need for flexibility and innovation in the workplace environment, in line with addressing the growing concern for employee burnout. Lastly, Smead shares the advantage of co-creating solutions with the workforce to effectively address these concerns.

🔑 Key Themes & Takeaways:

Optimizing Well-Being for Sustainable Success:

🌟 Matt Smeed introduces a paradigm shift, emphasizing that true, long-term excellence in the workplace hinges on optimizing well-being. This approach views both well-being and productivity as outcomes of effectively managing workplace pressures.

The Causal Link between Well-Being and Business Metrics:

📈 Matt discusses the correlation, and potentially causal relationship, between employee well-being and key business outcomes, such as retention, reduced sickness absence, and a stronger employer brand. He suggests that organizations can foster well-being by granting autonomy, ensuring positive leadership, and preventing overload.

Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace:

🧠 Highlighting the importance of psychological health and safety, Matt advocates for a workplace that avoids causing harm by managing psychosocial risks such as workload, autonomy, and relationships. This preventative approach aims to ensure a psychologically safe environment conducive to well-being.

Beyond Tick-Box Benefits to Address Psychosocial Hazards:

✅ While acknowledging the value of benefits like yoga sessions and cycle-to-work schemes, Matt stresses that these cannot substitute for addressing fundamental psychosocial hazards within the organization. True improvement in well-being requires tackling underlying issues first.

Empowering Teams to Navigate Workplace Demands:

🚫 Matt speaks to the necessity of empowering individuals and teams to manage expectations and workload effectively, suggesting that the willingness to set boundaries and communicate limits is essential for preventing stress and burnout.

The Business Case for Well-Being:

💡 Citing research, Matt presents a strong business case for prioritizing employee well-being, linking it to superior organizational performance. He also touches on generational shifts in workplace expectations, indicating a growing preference for well-being over traditional rewards.

Innovative Approaches to Work Design:

🔄 Discussing a European consultancy firm's approach of encouraging employees to pursue side hustles on a four-day workweek, Matt highlights innovative work designs that can enhance purpose and autonomy, contributing to both individual and organizational success.

Co-Creating Solutions with the Workforce:

🤝 Matt advocates for a participatory approach to solving complex workplace challenges, emphasizing the importance of co-creating solutions with employees. This involves listening, adapting, and iterating on strategies to enhance well-being and productivity.

We talk about:

• 3:09 How can organizations strike a balance between high performance and wellbeing

• 06:09 Thinking of wellbeing being an outcome

• 08:26 Metrics to measure wellbeing

• 10:49 What's getting in the way of pleasure and purpose for people

• 15:06 Difference between psychosocial risk and psychological health and safety

• 27:57 What could individuals, leaders, or organizations do to bring this notion of health, safety, and wellbeing to their organization

• 34:17 Thinking about generational differences of purpose and pleasure and the drive each one has at work

• 37:01 Innovation around work

• 41:00 Return to work/hybrid work in the UK

• 47:35 Advice around health, safety, and wellbeing for their teams and organizations

• 50:41 Rapid fire questions

Connect with Matt

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/workingwellcommunity

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/working-well-community/

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-smeed-b6033922/

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/matt_smeed

• https://www.workingwell.community/

Connect with me

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• Website: https://www.carolynswora.com/

• Contact: [email protected]