Wellbeing at Work With James Carrier

Wellbeing – is it another corporate buzzword, a moral responsibility or an investment in future performance? 

This week, we are lucky to have James Carrier joining us to discuss wellbeing at work. 

• How do we define it? 
• How do we measure it? 
• How do we improve it? 
• Why does it matter?
• What are our responsibilities for our personal wellbeing and those around us?

James Carrier is thought-provoking and insightful as he challenges our actions and beliefs. 

This isn't just an exercise to see how many Jameses you can get on one podcast! 

Transcript

0:03

Hello, I'm James. Hi, I'm Jimmy and welcome to a Job Done Well, a podcast that helps you improve your performance enjoyment at work.

Jimmy: 0:16

afternoon, James.

James: 0:16

afternoon, how are you doing?

Jimmy: 0:18

I'm doing well? I have to give my apologies today though, because. I have been to the dentist this morning and So yeah, if I start slurring or dribbling, I, it's not cause I'm drunk at this time of day. I

James: 0:32

That is nice because some of you will notice that we have started doing videos So you'll be able to see pictures of mr Barber dribbling out the side of his mouth. I'm sure that will do wonders for our audience figures Yeah, so what we yeah, maybe go soft focus man what we're

Jimmy: 0:45

What have you been up to, James? Tell us, tell us what,

James: 0:48

oh, yeah Well, mostly I have been mrs Lauder has been out in the garden and I have got my list of middle class jobs to do So I am pruning trees is the current thing that mrs. Lauder has got me

Jimmy: 0:58

pruning pruning trees and buffing Volvos

James: 1:01

involved exactly

Jimmy: 1:02

and eating artisan bread. Life in the law of the household.

James: 1:05

It's tough it really is a bit balsamic anyway, what are we talking about today?

Jimmy: 1:10

We are talking about wellbeing and a fascinating take on wellbeing from our special guest. Do you want to introduce James? Cause this is confusing for me because we have got too many James's on this call. Fortunately, I'm a bit more of a lower rent version at Jimmy, but we've got two proper James's, posh James's. So welcome James what are we going to call you? James C and James l

JC: 1:35

you guys can call me Jamie. You can call me jc. I'm, I'm really easy. So I'm James Carrier, so that's a bit of a jc so you're welcome to call me JC if you wish. Hi.

James: 1:44

How do you do? So tell us a little bit about you then James. Why, what are we talking about and why should we be talking to you?

JC: 1:50

All right. Cool. I've got quite a varied background. I'm originally an accountant working in professional services, then financial services, all that good stuff. I now focus very much on leadership and management development for a range of organizations. But within that, I'm hugely motivated by the experiences people have in the workplace. Okay, so when we create and deliver and design leadership and management development programs, a lot of the story that we tell is about the improvements in performance for an organization. But we know that a lot of the things that we do can also materially improve people's experiences. And that's something that I, you know, quite get off on. I think it really matters. I think our experiences in life are probably the most valuable thing that we have. And if we can create interventions for organizations that change and improve people's experiences, then that feels like a wonderful outcome. And when we're talking about experiences, one of the things that we really care about, at least in my opinion, is this idea of well being. Right? The well being that people experience. How well are they? If we combine those two words, it's their wellness and their being. So what is somebody's well being? Well, it seems like a really powerful thing to try and focus on in, in my experience and opinion. So that's me and why.

James: 2:58

pleased to meet you., it's a bit of a corporate buzzword at the moment, isn't it? Wellbeing, but what exactly, so it's well and being, but talk me through it a wee bit. How, what do you mean by wellbeing?

JC: 3:08

Yeah, and this is a really great question. And actually, one of the things I'm interested in is this sort of evidence based approach to well being. And one of the things I'd say is that really, we should start by trying to define what well being means for us or for our organization before we try and create initiatives to improve it. So if we ask people what well being is, and I often do in things that I do, they'll come up with lots of different words, and people have a sense of it, but trying to pin down an exact definition is difficult. And what I'd say is it's almost more important to shape your own definition than it is to try and anchor on another thing. Everyone's individual. We're all different. We all come from different backgrounds and contexts. We all have different things that we need in our lives to give us a sense of. Satisfaction with our lives. So despite that variability, there are some definitions that are out there that we can share. But again, they tend to be individuals. So one of'em that I like is that wellbeing is an individual's evaluative, reaction to his or her life, which includes things like cognitive judgments of life satisfaction and affecting evaluations of moods and emotions, right? That's a pretty academic definition, but essentially what it's saying is how do I subjectively assess. The current state of my lived experience, based on the factors that matter to me. If we're going to measure something like this, there's some simple things that we can do to try and measure somebody's well being or thriving. We can use things like a Cantor ladder. So, you know, score yourself between zero, everything's

James: 4:30

Sorry, you'll have to help me out there. A cantral ladder? What's a

JC: 4:33

Yeah. So that's an assessment where we score ourselves between zero, everything's dreadful and 10, everything's great. So we asked somebody to imagine a ladder between zero and 10. And we'll say, okay, so thinking about your life right now, in all factors, where would you score yourself? How satisfied are you with your life at the moment? And then we'd also ask somebody, how satisfied do you think you'll be with your life in five years time? And by looking at both the current assessment and a projection to the future, and kind of balancing those out, we can get a flavor of somebody's sense of how they're doing in their life. And if we sort of drill into the building blocks of what contributes to somebody's likelihood to subjectively assess themselves, with a higher level of well being, then we can understand some of the factors that contribute. But we'll come on to that a little bit later.

James: 5:16

Okay,

Jimmy: 5:17

James, just I know this is a really obvious question, but in terms of wellbeing, podcast is all about helping people improve their performance and enjoyment at work. How do you view that link between wellbeing and performance and enjoyment

JC: 5:34

Yeah, well, there are various papers and people that have looked at demonstrating the link between the quality of experience or thriving or well being that somebody has and their ability to perform well. Again, I can touch on some of those a little bit later on, but fundamentally I see a strong link between how well we show up in the workplace as individuals, how well we are in any moment, and our ability to get things done. And some of the things that we know change are things like our cognitive function, our emotional regulation. The decisions that we make, the optimism that we have, our ability to build and maintain effective relationships. So, so many of these factors shape our ability to perform well in the workplace. Particularly in workplaces where we work in social environments, collaborating, and working with other groups of people. So, there's a strong, strong, relationship.

Jimmy: 6:17

One of the. Best things about this conversation in many ways is it's such a win win because it, in business and work, people can get caught in, I do this, it costs me money. I lose, so there's always a trade off, but in this,. Employer wins, gets better performance and the employee enjoys their work and their life much more.

JC: 6:40

yeah, I couldn't, I couldn't agree more. And one of the reasons I like working in this space is it does really feel like a win win. I can honestly speak to organizations and say that I will help improve your organizational performance. And in my heart of hearts, I know I can make the lives of, or help the lives of people that get better as well. One, one thing that I'd like to just build on, on what you said is, Particularly running into COVID, there was a series of conversations looking at what productive behavior is, right? If we ask people what productivity is, they tend to think it's getting stuff off of my to do list. But what we don't tend to think of when we're exploring what productivity is, is investment behavior. So while things like improving well being can lead to improved performance outcomes, they tend not to do so in this instant. Right? They tend to be an investment to help you come back later. So you've got a bit of that temporal shift going on in here as well.

Jimmy: 7:26

And I think that's one of the things that people have to get their heads around is, you know, I do these things now. I don't see an improvement today. But over time, you've got to know that that investment will pay back handsomely And one of the other things I know we're going to explore this more that I really love about how you think about it is you touched on, you said evidence based well being as opposed to let's put out some baskets of fruit and run some yoga classes because it's the latest corporate buzzword that everyone's jumping on the bandwagon. Your take and your thinking is quite different. So it's a, you know, great to explore that through the episode today.

JC: 8:04

Yeah, very happy to. And nearly everything that I do is anchored in this sense of evidence based practice, right? I very much think that it's important to be in that kind of pracademic space, if you will, that space between some of the academic theory and research and what's going on. Actually, taking place on the ground in organizations and in both of

Jimmy: 8:22

that's, That's

JC: 8:23

Procademic practice got into it. Yeah, so, so I think that's really nice and to try and bridge that gap and bring the evidence base. So we need to work out what our definition of well being is. We need to design interventions that are targeted to specific things that we want to change in our needs. And then we want to measure against our own criteria how we're doing for those. So, so both using theories that are evidence based, but then assessing the interventions that we bring into our organizations, I think is important as well.

James: 8:53

So We talked about, well, Jimmy made the throwaway comment about, you know, it's not about bowls of fruit, but I have seen lots of these well being programs and frankly it has come down to bowls of fruit and I don't know, gym memberships and whatever the hell it might be. So, what, what is wrong with that approach? What, you know, why are those things not well being in your mind?

JC: 9:16

Yeah, so I guess the first thing that I'd say is back to the individual context. In some contexts and in some situations, those can contribute to improving somebody's well being, right? So, so in theory, these things can be beneficial. However, in the majority of instances, what organizations do is they think of something that feels beneficial. sort of ergonomic or intuitive from a well being perspective, copy it from somewhere else and roll it out without considering the needs of their organizations or the impact that it'll have. So with things like fruit, one of the things that we know is that the majority of fruit that's put into these organizations isn't consumed by the majority of people there. Maybe somebody sweeps it all up and takes it home. Maybe it ends up in a bin. But the point about things like fruit, and these other sort of small changes like this is that they often. Are, overlaying what are underlying conditions that damage somebody's well being. There was a great article in the FT maybe like eight years ago that said a lot of well being initiatives are kind of like organizations going out and breaking your leg and then saying here's a plaster, right? And while they keep breaking your legs, giving you plasters is no good at all. So we can, to some extent, think of fruit within our organizations as a little bit of a plaster, right? A little bit of something, a little bit of a salve, a little bit of palliative care, but they don't address the underlying factors that contribute the most to the way people experience well being

James: 10:33

But it really is, a collar and cuffs moment, isn't it? It's the organization is saying, well well being is important and what is the least thing we could do to show that we care about well being and that's probably spending a hundred quid a month on fruits. That's, do you see what I mean? It's so it's blindingly obvious they don't really care about employees well being at all. A

Jimmy: 10:52

it on a number of subjects and this one would be one of them where it's just lazy management. I know that this is a buzzword. I know. Intuitively, it feels like something I want to be doing, but I'll do it in a way is the easiest way possible. So minimum amounts of thought, minimum amounts of effort. I still want the return, but even if I don't get a return, it's right. Cause I feel good about myself. I've done a wellbeing program. But no, one of the things that you touched on is you said, think about the. Your definition of what well being means to you before you start doing stuff. How do you, how do you go about doing that? Cause that's a real challenge, isn't it?

JC: 11:33

I think it can be hard to get consensus, but I think a lot of people have a gut sense of what it is. Right? And so the way I go about something like that is with a group of people. I'd get a team or a leadership team together. You could do it at all kinds of levels and just have a conversation. Just ask people, what does well being mean to you? How do you know when you are being well? What are some of the factors that you think positively contribute to improving your wellbeing? How do you think you show up and perform when you are at your best? How do you interact and engage with others when you are not at your best? And ask a series of questions like that with the with the objective of, I guess, co creating, a shared understanding of what well being means and the different factors that are relevant for us in the workplace. And you can expand those conversations and say things like, well, if we think about our current workplace experience, what are the things that negatively affect our well being? Right. What are the ways that we adopt as a team in terms of our working practices that support your individual well being? Which ones inhibit or are detrimental to those? So I think by having those types of conversations, you can create that shared understanding. And like many of these types of, conversations and interactions you can have with your team. To some extent, the journey is as important as the destination. Getting people to think about the fact that well being is a thing, to recognize that how they feel and how they show up in different moments affects their performance in interaction of, with others. and and to, to try and instill this idea that we have some ability to control and influence this. as a collective group in the organization and as ourselves. So that, that creation of a sense of agency is quite a powerful thing as well that comes with this. So those are some of my thoughts on how I'd, I'd think about things like that.

James: 13:15

So you talk about evidence based. Now I'm sitting here and I'm thinking, well, yeah, tell me something I don't know, James. Frankly, if people are happy at work, they will be more productive. However, not everybody thinks that way. So is there actually any evidence that demonstrates that well being is linked to productivity or not?

JC: 13:32

There is, some of it's a bit more tenuous than some others, but fundamentally we know that there is a fair amount of evidence that looks at our ability to perform based on how we, how we are in ourselves. One of the things that someone I've been speaking to recently has been doing that I particularly like is a specific piece of research that's actually focused on reduced working hours. And, things like the four day week as a way to create space for well being. And what this person does, they're a neuroscientist. At Brighton University. And what they've been doing is, taking organizations through the process of implementing a four day working week. Before they do this, they take the participants. They, put them in MRI scanners. They track their brain chemistry and activity. They look at how they are biologically showing up as well as giving them assessments. In relation to their well being, they then go through a process of implementing a reduced working hours or 4 day week process within the organizations. They then check in with some of that MRI scanning and other assessments. At subsequent periods, and look at changes to their brain chemistry, look at changes to their self reported well being, and gather evidence from within the organization, be they internal customer teams, or other, peers, as well as externally about the performance of the individuals in the organization. And what they see is a material shift in the biological markers of health and well being. In brain chemistry. Material shift in the self reporting of wellbeing and the maintenance, and in some cases, an improvement of performance reported through peer groups, internally and externally. So, so that's something that I particularly like as a research. An evidence based, scientific approach to assessing some of this.

Jimmy: 15:14

And it's, I mean, that's, that's a whole fascinating can of worms, the four day week, because, I don't agree with it, but I can see intuitively how, hang on a minute. So I'm only going to get 80 percent of the amount of work time from a person. How does that not equate to 80 percent of their. Productivity output or whatever, but having personally, and I know this is not scientific and it's a sample of one having personally done a nine day fortnight in a job, my performance definitely was better and my output overall was better, even though I was in theory working one day less a fortnight. And it's, it's just, I think people are caught in that old school, hours presenteeism that, that is, popular in a lot of workplaces.

JC: 16:01

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And one of the things that, you know, when you try and unpick this specific piece of evidence, this specific piece of research that comes up is that a protracted period away from the stresses of work gives people's brains space to recharge and recover neurochemically. And as a result, they think more clearly. They reach decisions with more certainty. They're more confident in what they do, and they're better able to do the right thing the first time. So, to your point about working, I don't know, 80 percent of the time, what we tend to see is people work 80 percent of the time, but at 125 percent of the performance. So, they're as effective. So,

Jimmy: 16:40

this is a, a slight tangent, but if you wanted any proof of this being a good idea, obviously there is a link to, flexible working and working from home and giving employees the choice as well. And we're doing it the day after Donald Trump was inaugurated. And one of the first things that he did was insist that all federal employees now have to get into the office. So there's the perfect recommendation for

JC: 17:03

Yeah. Yes, indeed. indeed. 21 January, what a day it is.

17:09

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James: 17:42

Anyway, so we've talked about evidence based. What else should a well being program be then? What else would you recommend?

JC: 17:50

Yeah, so, so for me, I think if we're thinking about what a well being program is, I think it's important to really think about it as a strategic part of an organization, right? You want to maintain your resources. If we think about it from a sort of, a commercial perspective, if you have fixed assets, you are going to spend a certain amount of budget to invest in maintaining well being. The performance of your fixed assets. That's what you do. You've got a repairs budget, However, when it comes to the people in our organizations, organizations tend to do that a little bit less, effectively. so so what you tend to see organizations do is they'll adopt, an approach to well being that is a well being week, or a well being initiative, but they're one off incremental, efforts to, to address well being as opposed to a consistent ongoing aspect of what, should be the case, which is a maintained focus on well being throughout, the entirety of a year within an organization. Fundamentally, organizations tend not to focus as consistently as they should. It should be considered a strategic objective, as I say. I think we sometimes get into a little bit of a challenge with this that I just want to bring up as well, which I think is relevant, which is there are disputes in relation to who is accountable for this. Right. If we say that an individual's performance improves, you know, with their well being, and their quality of life improves, that's great. But whose job is it to do that? Is it the hope of the organization to do that? Or is it the individual's responsibility to do that? And so one of the things that you'll often see is you'll see focus on things like resilience. Right. And so there's a program for resilience and something like a resilience program is designed to improve an individual's capability to deal with adverse events. Effectively. And, and kind of what we're doing when we introduce things like resilience programs, if we just do that, is saying, well, you know what? Things are bad, but I'll give you the skills to deal with the bad things, and it's on you to deal with those bad things more effectively. We're not culpable for the things that we do that create those negative experiences for you. It's on you to be better at dealing with them. And, and, like, I don't want to get too much into that type of thing, because I think it, it leads to sort of politics and things like that. But what I would say is, I think, When organizations tackle well being well and think about initiatives well, they think about it strategically and they think about it holistically, and they look at the factors in their control that shape somebody's experience. So one of the things

James: 20:07

back to your point about resilience training, I mean that's just well Hang on if things are so bad that I've got to give you resilience training Would I not be better off doing about things being so bad? Yeah, I mean, it's not really addressing the root cause is it? Yeah,

JC: 20:25

It's not that things here that I've created are bad. It's that you are insufficiently resilient. So the problem is yours, not mine. And you get organizations that lead to higher turnover cultures where this is the case and they've got, it's, it's kind of like a different strategic model to churn and burn through people, but yes, I I very much agree.

Jimmy: 20:43

I think another angle on that JC will be that accountability is, I bet there's people that are listening to this now and thinking, This is HR's problem. This is something that they will fix when actually, we talk about this a lot, leaders as well as the individuals, we, we all have a responsibility for wellbeing in the workplace. It's not, there's no answer that says it's, yours, mine, it's, it's in, in essence, it's, it's all of ours. And that's a bit trite, but that's the reality

JC: 21:12

No, I agree. I agree. And, and I think individual responsibility is, is important and it does matter, but I don't think the entirety of the onus should be on the individual. I very much think leaders have a place to play. To have a role to play in this. And so for me, a lot of the things that matter are things like, do we focus on the design of the roles that we have? Are we asking reasonable things of the people that we have? Are we giving people the tools? That are sufficient to let them do the job and that sort of tools, we might use the word resources instead, and the resources people need to do their jobs effectively without damaging their well being are many and varied, including things like regular effective feedback, positive relationship with, you know, leaders or positive sentiment towards leaders. things like, you know, being free of, prejudice and criticism, getting clear steering within the organization, reduction in organizational politics, increased levels of autonomy, right? So, so those types of psychological and social resources that we can bring shape somebody's experience in the workplace. But many organizations don't focus on things like that. Instead they'll introduce resilience training. And we can also talk about things like, does somebody have the right computer? Do they have a chair that supports their physical posture? Do they have sufficient breaks? All those types of things in a more physical space as well. so for, a wellbeing type initiative, it might be to be really effective. It needs to consider the resources that People have to do what they do, including physical, psychological, and social resources. As well as considering things like the demands placed on them within the scoping of a work, within the definitions of their roles, within the clarity of their organizational structures, within that broad range of factors that shape how they experience the workplace.

Jimmy: 22:53

And I think therein lies one of the challenges back to my earlier comment on lazy management. When you talk about it, it's, it's almost like, you know, overwhelming the things that you've got to consider. so if you've, you've had, you've had the conversation about what wellbeing means in this environment and to us as a team,

JC: 23:14

Mm hmm.

Jimmy: 23:15

at, how do you break down that, that, that overwhelming number of things that you need to think about?

JC: 23:22

Yeah. Yeah, that's a good question. And there are various different diagnostics out there. So in a little bit we'll talk about some of the factors that contribute to well being. One of the, the things that I was referencing just a minute ago is something called the Job Demand Resources Model. There are different building blocks that contribute to these. And essentially, the way you go about prioritizing your response to these is the way you go about prioritizing your response to, to anything else that you'd assess. You'd consider the factors, you'd assess how you're performing. against those factors in your team, and you would then create an intervention or make a change to target those that feel most important to you. So if we sort of prod the job demands model a bit more, the demands that are bundled into the model are volume, pace, change of work is one, intellectual strain is another, physical is another, social is another, and then organizational and team is another. So those are the five sort of blocks of demands, and then there's a similar thing for resources, and you assess those. Choose ones that felt most efficient and then create an initiative to address that at whatever level seemed appropriate.

James: 24:25

It's a bit like the way we would look at organizational productivity. So if we talk to an organization about productivity, we start not trying to make them more productive. What we do is we take the things out that stop them being productive. Yeah. So it's a removal game. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But this is exactly the same. Presumably it's very difficult to make somebody more well, but you just get rid of the things that stop it.

JC: 24:49

So I think, I think there's some nuance in there that I need to go away and think about how much I agree with it, but the first thing I'd say is I think this is a productivity piece. I don't think that this is like a productivity initiative. I think it's exactly the same thing. How do we improve our resources? And that happens to lead to that secondary benefit of somebody's well being. I think when we look at things like job demands, we can remove the blockers, right? So we can get things and take things away. So an example that. Might warm your heart as somebody in the performance improvement spaces, we can get rid of excessive and unhelpful bureaucracy, right? So that's something that we can get rid of that boosts. people's experiences in the workplace and tends to boost their well being, right? So that's for reduction of something. However, we can do something like give them a clearer job spec, right? And that is something that's a bit of an asset to them. We can do things like give them recognition, which is effectively a low cost thing. And yes, that's dealing with a deficit of recognition that might've been there already, but that's an extra thing that's there. So we can have. Celebrations of success, so on and so forth. One thing that people genuinely value from, job resources is timely, regular feedback. We want to know how we're doing and, and by this I don't just mean like, you know, appraisal type feedback. You know, a great example is something like a Garmin watch. You're going along, you're doing your task, and it's telling you constantly, this is how I'm doing, this is how I'm doing, I'm on track, I'm not, here's my heart rate, all of that stuff, right? So that operational feedback in the moment. is a great resource for people.

Jimmy: 26:21

so this may be a nuance on what you're saying, JC, but yeah, I understand wanting to know how you're doing, but one of the things that I've always seen in every team I've worked in, people want praise and thanks. I want to know I'm appreciated, I want to know what I'm doing makes a difference, which is kind of like feedback, but it's, it's a

James: 26:45

Yeah. It's interesting you say that, Jimmy, I read in Search of Excellence, which is a great book. I have to say. I was giving it 30 years ago and I read it. And then one of the things, the points Tom Peters makes in that is he says, people want to believe that they're doing well and they're on a winning team, right? And just everybody wants that, even if they're just mediocre, as. Possible that is what they want to believe and actually if you don't give them that belief then they will be more mediocre So it is little bit of you. You get what you wish for

JC: 27:14

And I'd echo both of those. I'd echo the point that. What I consider is celebration of success is slightly different to feedback and we often conflate them because the way we use feedback. So we have in the moment job related feedback and then we have that sort of performance feedback that often brings both of those together.

James: 27:31

Right on that note, I think we are going to have a quick break. And we will come back next week and we will talk about the barriers to this approach So I'll speak to you

Jimmy (2): 27:43

Thanks everyone.

James (2): 27:44

Cheers now.

27:45

We cover a whole host of topics on this podcast from purpose to corporate jargon, but always focused on one thing, getting the job done well, easier said than done. So if you've got. Unhappy customers or employees, bosses or regulators breathing down your neck. If your backlogs are out of control and your costs are spiraling and that big IT transformation project that you've been promised just keeps failing to deliver. We can help if you need to improve your performance, your team's performance or your organization's. Get in touch at jimmy at jobdonewell. com or james at jobdonewell. com