Book Buzz: Wellbeing at Work
We get it. You do not have time to read all the books you should. So let me break down an important one on mental health at work.
Picture this. I take ten of your employees to lunch, without you there, where they feel safe answering honestly, and I ask: on a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your wellbeing at work?
What do you think they'd say?
Gallup's polling has found:
Only 33% of Americans said they were thriving in their wellbeing
41% said they experienced sadness every day
50% said they experienced daily stress
Only 20% of employees like what they do every day
If I were a betting person, I'd bet that for the next five years, the largest topic related to your employees will be employee wellbeing. Your people can only be productive when they have it. And since they spend so many hours a day at their job, what happens at your company has a profound impact on it.
Most of us as CEOs were never trained or equipped to handle that kind of responsibility.
What the Book Does
Wellbeing at Work by Jim Clifton and Jim Harter helps you understand what you can do to improve someone's wellbeing as it relates to their work day — and, just as usefully, the factors you have no control over at all.
Wellbeing has several elements: career, social, financial, physical, and community.
My Favorite Takeaways from the Career Section
Learn how to have wellbeing conversations between employees and their managers. Ask whether they love what they do every day. Talk about career development — and about how they're doing personally.
Move your managers from bosses to coaches. We're seeing this with our clients too. The reason someone quits or stays usually comes down to how good their manager is at coaching them.
Handle the basics well. Set clear goals with your people, provide adequate resources, lead goal-setting sessions, and set clear expectations.
One Thing I Didn't Like
The back half of the book is largely a re-run of the StrengthsFinder profiles. I do love StrengthsFinder — I just don't think it needed printing again here.
My Recommendation
Read the first half, especially if you're a CEO or owner struggling with retention or hiring, or if you genuinely want to make your workplace a great place to work.
I'm convinced that if a CEO spent just two hours a month on the strategy and execution of employee health, that organization would have a better workplace and far fewer HR problems on the back end.
Want help building that into your year? Grab a free 30-minute session with one of our HR experts.