Tips to Improve the Psychological Wellbeing of Your Team

Transcript

Thomas Calvard (Lecturer in Human Resource Management): Some of the most common causes of poor psychological wellbeing, or factors that negatively affect it, are things that people often need a lot of control over. So things like social support. I think working long hours is a very big one. Another big one is status anxiety. So people feeling that they need to make a really, really amazing impression, and work as hard as they possibly can, and that there's some sort of rat race or competition, and that there's only so much room at the top. I think that shouldn't be underestimated.

Andrew Noblet (Chair in Organizational Behavior): The most common sources of poor employee wellbeing include job insecurity, lack of control, or a lack of decision-making latitude in what happens within our job, and also within the work groups that we operate in. A lack of support, particularly from supervisors and colleagues, have been shown to have lasting effects on stress levels, and on the wellbeing, and health of employees overall.

Rob Briner (Professor of Organizational Psychology): I think one way managers can really pick up on how people feeling, particularly negative feelings and specific feelings, I guess like anger and resentment, is when employees start to withdraw.

So there's a whole class of what are called "withdraw behaviors." And this can be, actually, being absent from work and be coming late to work. It can even be being psychologically absent, in that, they're in the office, but not really involved or engaged to what's going on. I think that's a pretty good sign. And even, I think, very small things like people turning up late for meetings.

And this is something that is actually quite common that you notice sometimes. Some individuals, almost semi-deliberately, start arriving, they're always five minutes late, or six minutes late, or eight minutes late, and you're thinking, "What is that about?" And quite often, I think it's a sign that they're unhappy, that they're disgruntled. And often it goes back, I think, as a psychological contract. Those individuals often feel they're putting far more into the organization and to their job than they're getting back in return.

Thomas Calvard: The advice I would give to managers looking for signs and symptoms of perhaps negative effects on wellbeing in their team members would be to, first of all, build it into your performance appraisal in a way that would be called psychologically safe. So open up the discussion, perhaps role model, an example of it that the manager has faced in their own life. Open up the discussion, make sure it's very clear that it's okay to talk about these issues. There's no easy way to look at it. It's very difficult to talk about.

Rob Briner: I mean, I think if managers are observing, if you're like, reduce wellbeing, anxiety, depression, anger or something in a member of the team, I think it is quite a challenge to know how to deal with it.

I mean, some people, I think, naturally are quite good at talking to other people about how they feel about stuff or they maybe have had training because they've done counseling or something, but many of us are not very good at it. And I think one of the key things to do is to not delve in, and just immediately start talking to people about, "Why are you feeling? What are you feeling? And how you're feeling?" Is actually talk to people about what they're doing. Ask them what they're up to at work, ask them what they are expecting to happen, ask them if they're being disappointed by anything, and just try and get outta them what they're actually doing.

And, as I said, you know, I think that is a key way in which I think you can actually understand how people are feeling, by you talking about, you know, what they're doing and what they hope, and how they're frustrated in different ways.

Andrew Noblet: I think a really important approach for managers to take in having a conversation around job stress is to simply recognize that the work that we're doing can be stressful, or maybe stressful for employees, recognizing that employees will respond differently to various conditions.

So a preparedness to have that conversation is really important. And I think couching it in terms of, well, "I, as a manager, I recognize that the work that you do, you know, it is demanding. It's also challenging, but it can, after a while, can take its toll. And so I want to be able to identify quite early in the phase, as to whether a certain set of conditions have gone beyond the challenge, and they've become a source of stress, a key source of stress for employees." And so we need to be having that conversation.

Rob Briner: I mean, I think if line managers want to try and improve, or manage in some way the psychological wellbeing of their team members, I think there's kind of three basic things I would say. First is I think you have to try and be aware of your own wellbeing feelings. I think you are in no position to understand or help anyone else unless you've got a reasonable sense of how you are reacting and feeling about things. That's the first thing.

I think the second thing is to actually watch, and observe, and listen, and try and understand how those around you are actually feeling about stuff, and understand them as individuals as well.

I think the third thing I would say is that, you know, people are different individuals. And I think the key thing is understanding what are people trying to give at work and what do they want back in return? What is that deal? What is the psychological contract that they're looking for? And quite often, as a line manager, they'll be looking to you to try and resolve all the problems around that. So I think it's being aware of that as well.

Andrew Noblet: Tips for line managers to be able to improve the psychological wellbeing of their their work group will be, first of all, to make sure that they have a good understanding of the work that their employees are undertaking, and they're completely aware of the sorts of pressures and demands that they are facing.

Also, acknowledging to employees that we might be, as line managers, we might be feeling stressed at the same time. And I think that shows a level of vulnerability amongst managers, which then can make it easier for employees to open up. If they have that approach, then they're in a much better position to be able to empathize this with their employees.

Thomas Calvard: Allocate and explicitly designate a champion at the team level who's job is to deal with wellbeing issues, to develop models, frameworks, ways of talking about them, and ways of addressing them. So it's squarely on the agenda, and it's mainstreamed within the HRM strategy and HRM function.

My final point would be to look at the environment or the places in which teams and people are working themselves. Wellbeing links to many environmental issues around health. So, are people working in environments that are physically, psychologically, and socially healthy? And that means that they have a lot of choice in how they configure their environments, they have ownership over the environments that they work in. And that they meet their psychological, social, and physical needs.

About the Interviewees

In order of first appearance, the interviewees in this video are:

Tom Calvard is a Senior Lecturer in Human Resource Management at the University of Edinburgh Business School. Further information on Tom can be found in his biography.

Andrew Noblet is Professor at the Deakin Business School, Melbourne. Further information is available in Andrew’s biography.

Rob Briner is Professor of Organizational Psychology at Queen Mary University of London. Further information on Rob can be found in his biography.