A strategically healthy team works wonders!
Shall we do the exercise together? Take out your strategy and read it cover to cover once. How many times are words like "well-being", "endurance" or "atmosphere" mentioned there? What about "result", "turnover" or "profitability"?
We have a hypothesis that the strategy does not talk too much about people's well-being. We claim that in almost all strategies, the result, turnover and profitability and their derivatives get dozens of times more mentions than any theme related to well-being. This is emphasized at smaller operators, where welfare is sometimes seen more as a nice extra or something that "will come from there under its own weight".
Spoiler: otherwise it won't.
Well-being work communities and even more precisely well-being teams are, according to research, those that also perform better than their peers. Some studies even claim that a healthy person produces up to twice as much as an overstressed and tired "walker".
Well, what are the wonders that healthy teams create? Quite simply, it's about five things:
Better productivity:
A good feeling helps to keep one's eye on the ball, i.e. focus on doing more, in which case satisfaction also increases individual achievement.
Commitment:
A well-being employee is also a satisfied employee, in which case he does his work with pleasure and well, and thus he also commits to the team and the house more strongly. This, in turn, strengthens a good employer image.
Less stress:
Stress can never be eliminated, nor should it be, because a suitable amount of stress is even good. The key is that stress does not turn into exhaustion in a healthy person - and the sad story of that exhausted employee is already known by heart to anyone who has been in the working life for any length of time.
Innovation:
In an ever-changing world, innovation is the key to long-term success. However, innovation fades into haste and anxiety, just like the person himself eventually, while a good and relaxed mind actually overfeeds positive innovation.
Financial benefit:
Simple - a healthy employee is less absent and produces more when he is there. After all, it turns into euros no matter how you think about it.
It is therefore quite legitimate to say that by investing in people's well-being, you are actually investing in a better ability to generate results, which in turn easily turns into profitability and, of course, also turnover - that is, exactly the things that the strategy talks about.
So if at this point you felt a small (or big) sting in your heart, stop for a moment and think about your strategy. Does it take people's well-being into account as an enabler of results, or does it produce results at the expense of people's well-being? It shouldn't be unclear which one we believe will lead to better results in the long run.
And hey – remember that small actions can lead to big things. Don't try to move a mountain, but at the beginning identify a few key things that affect your well-being and solve them. At the same time, think about how these necessary measures should be included in the strategy so that you are not putting out similar fires again after the holiday season.
To these pictures, to these moods. Happy summer to everyone!
