EXJournal

This is the second part in our employee mental wellbeing series. If you haven't read it yet, check out part one: Encouraging employees to flourish. Here's a quick recap.

Create a global employee experience where everyone is equal, no matter which office they're in.

Sixty years ago Douglas McGregor from the MIT Sloan School of Management presented two theories of workforce motivation he named “Theory X” and “Theory Y.” Over the intervening decades these theories have been used by leadership teams, HR professionals and OD folks as they craft and create HR policies, performance management programs, rewards and recognition, and work space design.

People tend to associate the term mental wellbeing with illnesses such as depression, schizophrenia, and bi-polar disorder. As a result, organisations tend to think it’s not relevant to everyone and shy away from addressing employee mental wellbeing. But what if I were to talk about stress, anxiety, and burnout? Suddenly, mental well-being becomes highly relevant because these are common work-related terms and issues that affect many employees.

Numbers are easy*.

Judging by the literature being published on the information-super-highway, the new titles being bandied about on LinkedIn and the real competition for talent, it seems that Employee Experience is a 'thing'. Maybe even ‘the thing’ if you’re of an HR bent.

Fairness is widely studied within academic literature, where it is known as Organisational Justice. However, it is not commonly measured within organisations themselves. Perhaps because organisations don't fully understand its importance and relationship to business outcomes.

"Employees don't leave companies. Employees leave managers." 

He was literally leaping up the stage stairs. “C’mon everyone, let’s get those energy levels back up!” Far too Tony Robins for this small event. “Everyone, stand up!”

All too often we hear business and public-sector leaders talk about how important their people are to their respective organisations. In fact, I suspect most who read this article would have heard phrases like “our greatest asset is our people”.