Work-from-home and hybrid set-ups have made finding a work-life balance challenging for many employees. The new reality is that most employees are spending much of their day working. In turn, this has led to an organizational responsibility towards employees’ physical, mental and emotional well-being. Major changes to the workplace have emerged based on the increased attention to mindfulness, including corporate gym memberships and playing sports on company outings. This makes sense, as employee wellness has a direct correlation to productivity, profitability and talent retention. Yet, well-being is a topic that is separate – though closely tied – to L&D. This raises a few questions: Should well-being inherently be an L&D preoccupation? Can L&D departments do more in this field, and how? We will explore the possibilities below:
Well-being is impacted by more than just physical health and safety. The emotional, social, spiritual, environmental and intellectual aspects of life all leave an impression on employees, and work could be impacting these elements in unexpected ways. Consider technology, for example: many employees struggle to disconnect from the office because they get constant notifications from coworkers on their phones. A lack of competency with various digital platforms can lead to emotional distress and confusion among teammates. Programming that strategically addresses these elements would allow employees the opportunity to apply their learnings and improve their work-life balance.
As a leader, offering programs that explore the work-life interface can also create a shared understanding of well-being within your team. Crafting an organizational understanding of wellness through L&D could include forums that discuss the definition of the term. HR and senior leaders could also partake in brainstorming sessions that connect personal well-being to the values of your organization.
Caring for our own needs – let alone those of others – can be a challenge. Luckily, wellness can be developed just like any other skill in the workplace. Well-being practices do not come naturally to all employees, but upskilling these abilities is essential to the creation of a positive work environment.
For instance, focusing on resilience is a great way to bring mental and emotional health into the conversation. Resilience is not a natural born ability; it is a competency that can be learned and acquired. However, leaders must be careful not to combine the concept of mental well-being with resilience by putting the sole responsibility of wellness onto the employee. L&D plays an integral role in making sure these concepts are well-understood, and not misconstrued, by the organization.
Self-care is also an ability that can be developed and may require upskilling within your organization. Managing stress, maintaining focus and increasing job satisfaction are just some of the results of a positive self-care practice. While many individuals struggle to prioritize themselves within a busy corporate setting, healthy self-care habits can be nourished through inspirational stories and on-the-job training through L&D.
There are experiential and metaphorical ways to explore well-being through L&D programming. For instance, at WDHB we have the Resilient Leader Experience, which teaches practical tools for overcoming adversity through the lens of elite athletics. Beyond dedicated programs, you can also include key concepts related to wellness in your usual curricula. For example, we include adapted physical activity and mindfulness sessions within our programs, which allows learners to experiment with new well-being techniques.
Today, L&D professionals must find ways to connect learning and wellness while also enhancing their knowledge of valuable development initiatives.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, well-being is discussed now more than ever before. The topic becomes more complex when considering the social, environmental, mental and emotional factors that contribute to a person’s overall happiness in the workplace. Since wellness could be supported by providing education on adjacent topics such as resilience and self-care, there’s a greater reliance on L&D to offer solutions that navigate well-being in the corporate ecosystem. Aligning leaders with the practical skills they need to support wellness will amplify productivity and profitability, and employee retention will increase exponentially.
We should keep in mind that one’s ability to learn is closely connected to their wellness. By integrating well-being into L&D strategy, you will reach a new level of corporate synergy and spark multi-dimensional growth for your business.
Interested in how L&D can improve your teams? Let’s have a conversation.
McKinsey’s ‘Diversity Matters’ report has shown that organisations with a prominent level of gender,…
View ArticleThe goal of anyone with design skills to create graphs and charts should always be to tell better stories…
View Article