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What does it mean to feel well at work?
It's about giving them meaning, purpose, enjoyment, satisfaction and somewhere to thrive at work.
In today's episode of Learning English for Work, we're talking about how the way you feel affects the way you work.
Hello and welcome to Learning English for Work, our podcast to help you improve your business English.
I'm Pippa.
And I'm Phil.
You can find a transcript for this episode to read along on our website, bbclearningenglish.com.
Phil do you think it's important to have good well-being at work?
Yeah, I think it's really important because we spend so much time at work and if you don't feel well at work, it can it can really affect the rest of your life, I think.
So yeah, it's really important, I think.
Yeah, absolutely.
As you say, we spend many hours of our week at work.
And I think it's really hard, if things aren't going well at work, to leave those problems at work and go home and just be fine.
And businesses try lots of things to try and help us feel good at work.
So in recent years, lots of companies have introduced a lot of well-being perks.
So things like yoga or meditation or even free breakfast in the office to try and help people feel good at work.
But do these kinds of things actually make us feel better?
Yes.
Today, we're going to be talking all about well-being at work.
How do companies try to keep employees happy at work?
And how can we thrive in our jobs?
To help us with these questions, I spoke to Sophia Bjorek from the Institute for Employment Studies.
Sophia researches the things employers can do to keep their employees healthy and happy.
How are you?
Yeah, I'm good.
How are you, Pippa?
I'm great.
Could you introduce yourself in terms of who you are and what you do, please?
Of course.
So I'm Dr. Sophia Bjorek and I'm a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Employment Studies.
And so what that means is I do a lot of research and evaluations into the world of work, workplace policy.
And I specifically very much look at the work of health and well-being in the workplace, good line managerial practice and essentially how we can make work good for people.
OK, so what do we mean by sort of well-being and all of those things that you mentioned about work being kind of good for us?
I think on a really, really basic, fundamental level, it's about not making people ill at work or maintaining somebody's health at work.
If you take that up, I suppose a level when you're looking at somebody's well-being.
It's about how you can balance somebody's emotions.
So if somebody's got positive wellbeing, then you would expect somebody to experience more positive emotions.
They'll be happier.
They'll feel joy in the workplace.
They might feel more satisfied with what they're doing.
And if somebody has got poorer wellbeing, then they might display emotions such as sadness or anxiety or depression.
So, Phil, wellbeing at work is about our physical, mental and emotional health.
But for Sophia, true work wellbeing is also about enjoying your job and being satisfied with the work that you do.
But I would argue that workplace wellbeing is fundamentally more than ensuring somebody's happy at work.
But it's about giving them meaning purpose enjoyment, satisfaction and to somewhere to thrive at work.
And it's also about protecting staff, making sure that they don't get ill or preventing employees who might already be ill from getting worse.
Yeah, and i suppose i can see the benefits of all those things from an employee perspective.
But how would you, kind of um, see this from the perspective of the employer, the business what?
How should they think about well-being?
Well, going back to that, I think if you've got somebody who's feeling happy and energised and wanting to come into work, then they'll fundamentally do a good job for you.
They'll be more committed.
They'll be more creative, innovative.
They'll be wanting to throw themselves into work and do the best that they can for the organisation.
And they'll give you good outputs.
They'll be more productive.
There'll be less sickness absence, less what we call a presenteeism, when people come to work when they might not be well.
And so their productivity might be inhibited.
You know, people will just want to give more and to show the organisation that they're willing to go that extra step.
OK, so it sounds like people being happy and well at work can be good for individuals and for businesses too.
I wonder though, Pippa, what does research show actually helps employees feel happy at work?
Is it those perks like you mentioned at the start of the programme, the free breakfast and meditation, or is it something else?
Well, Sophia says it's about an idea that she calls good work.
So this is feeling happy and satisfied with the work that you do.
So that's things like making sure that people have autonomy over when and how and the speed in which they work, they have employee voice, they feel comfortable to say what they want to say at work, that they have good support, good line management, good flexibility fairness, they're rewarded fairly for what they're doing.
So we have that evidence to show that good quality work works.
But in practice, what we see in organisations are what we call organisations implementing the sparkly things, such as fruit baskets on a Monday morning or gym passes or head massages.
Now, I'm not knocking organisations that do this.
You know, anything that gives an employee a little bit of a boost at some points is always going to be welcomed.
But that isn't going to make the long lasting changes to well-being as focusing on the good work is.
Yeah, I was going to ask, what is the most important thing?
If you could kind of get all employers to do one thing, what would it be?
But maybe it's not that simple.
I would say it's not that simple, unfortunately.
So I have a little mantra that I go by when I talk about developing good work and well-being at practices, and it's a three-point triangle.
So the first is um, looking at good work.
The second, i would say, is well, do organizations know how well they're, how well their employees are, at the first place, and do or do organizations need better evidence to show what needs to be done?
Then i would say the third corner is the role of, of the good line manager um, because essentially a line manager plays a critical role in how people manage or experience work, and they are there to make sure that your well-being isn't affected by work, to make sure that you are healthy at work.
So in your one-to-one meetings, not only should they be asking you about you know How are your projects?
Are you meeting your deadlines?
Fundamentally, the first question in a line managerial one-to-one should be how are you?
A lot of what we're talking about here is sort of organizationally and how can businesses sort of make this experience better.
But um, I suppose for our listeners who are like an individual within an organization, whether they be managing someone or they they are managed by someone what are the key things to think about when it comes to kind of your own, I guess, personal well-being at work?
Yeah totally, there are things that you can do yourself, Simple things.
First of all, make sure you're eating and you're drinking well.
Are you taking your lunch hour?
Your lunch break is there for a purpose.
Our brains need a break just as much as our body needs a break.
Make sure that you're socially connected to people.
I think one of the things at the moment with the changes in work and the changes in workplaces, many of us are working in a hybrid way at the moment.
And for some, we could go for a day without connecting with anybody.
But if we have a day where you know we might not see somebody or speak to somebody, that can be really poor for your well-being.
But I think inherently it's about making sure that you're getting out of your work what you want to get out of it and, within a line managerial relationship, as much as your line manager is there to to look after you, you also have that responsibility to go to your line manager to say well, actually things aren't looking well for me at the moment or, you know, I think that I could do better in my work if I had this particular bit of training or I had access to this bit of development, or actually none of the work that I'm doing at the moment is exciting me.
It's not using my skills.
Is there any way that we can craft a role or I can be put on a project where I actually am excited to go into work and to open my emails?
There's a joint responsibility there.
It sounds like making sure people feel well at work is quite complicated.
It's not a simple answer.
Yeah, I like this idea about being satisfied and having a purpose in what you do.
Certainly in jobs I've done, that's always been really important to me.
Yeah, and Sophia did say that one to one meetings with your line manager are really important.
So it's not just about your line manager helping you, but you have to think about what do you want to talk about in those meetings?
And it might be difficult to speak up about how you feel with your manager in some organisations.
Maybe you've said something before and you were ignored.
So there are other places to go for support if you're feeling unwell or unhappily.
So, talking to family colleagues, maybe a union representative, if you have one, or health professionals.
Make sure you're looking after yourself.
Thanks for listening to this episode.
You can find more programmes to help you with your English at work on our website bbclearningenglishcom.
Next time, we'll be talking about the impact of AI on work.
Bye for now.
Bye.
