HWB Expo Wellbeing Trends Report 2023.

11 Apr

Last month we took our Psychology Works pop up 'Wellbeing Lounge' to the the Health & Wellbeing at Work Exhibition.

It was great to see everyone and a huge thank you to everyone who visited the stand and shared with us their biggest wellbeing challenge and number one wellbeing priority for 2023 with us via our interactive Better@Work model.

Over the last month we’ve locked ourselves away in a darkened room, working through a very (very) substantial pile of 300+ colour-coded post-it notes to analyse and identify the key themes across the biggest wellbeing challenges and priorities that were shared with us.

Better@Work.

To make sense of the data, we mapped the information shared with us using the four key themes of the Better@Work model:

Manage - The practical tools and techniques they need for managing workload and everyday sources of stress. Building a sense of control and resilience?
Refuel - How to ‘refill the tank’. Understanding where you get your energy from, and developing strategies for getting more of it
Recover - Targeted interventions to help people recover and build back from the health and wellbeing challenges they are experiencing
Lead - Working with managers and leaders to embed practices to address the structural and cultural causes of poor wellbeing

What did we learn?

The data has been rich and expansive, the insights both fascinating, and at times, unexpected. So much so, we had to dial out for emergency supplies of Cadbury’s Creme eggs, before we hit the spreadsheets again for a bit more data crunching. However, amongst all of this couple of key themes really stood out…

The challenges.

The first question we asked was ‘What is your biggest wellbeing challenge right now?

The answer? The need for a greater work-life balance was top, but specifically what we noticed is that the conversation is now more about ‘boundaries’. Less, how can I keep my work within a neat ‘9-5pm’ box, more how can I find a routine or ways of working that work for me? How to I stop the lines blurring between work and home? How do I make time for me?

Very closely linked to this was ‘time’ as a top three challenge with ‘workload’ often coming up as the primary driver behind this particular issue. Rounding out the top three challenges was ‘Strategy and Culture’ - which considering the culture of an organisation can have such a strong impact on both boundaries and people finding their workload manageable, this is not surprising.

Of the key challenges listed, the one that is probably more unique to the wellbeing leaders and practitioners that we met the event (rather than employees generally), was ‘getting buy in’.

Getting the buy in of both employees and leaders made the top ten, but engaging employees was quite clearly the greater challenge.

Priorities.

The second question we asked visitors to our stand, was what was their number one wellbeing priority for them this year?

Again, there were some really strong over-riding themes that people shared with us. The number one priority was ‘self care’, which for many seems to be taking the form of prioritising more physical activity, which was the second highest wellbeing priority. Both, very much sitting within the Refuel element of the Better@Work model. In their own words, for health and wellbeing specialists and practitioners 2023 is about “making more time for me” and “moving more”.

A close third place in the wellbeing priorities was ‘self compassion’, which as one delegate described to us simply as being about “being kinder to myself”, especially in the face of “too much work, not enough resources” as one other visitor shared with us. In terms of what that looks like, within the top ten priorities we also then see a very clear cluster all sitting around ‘Manage’ of ‘time’, ‘staffing levels’, and again ‘boundaries’.

Reflections and conclusions.

So what are the insights or lessons to be learnt from the data? First of all, what struck us was how bloomin’ hard the people we met work - and like many individuals we meet working in the world of wellbeing, HR, OD and L&D, as well as those with management responsibility, they operate in quite a unique space. That of working to advocate and facilitate the wellbeing of others - whilst also trying to look after their own.

There is clearly a self awareness and insight amongst those we spoke to, of the need to prioritise their own wellbeing - the classic “put your own oxygen mask on first, before attempting to help those around you” - and in 2023, this means clearer boundaries and better self care.

The second thing that stood out to us was that implementing wellbeing resources or solutions did not make the top ten - in either challenges or priorities. To be honest, we were not surprised by this. Most larger organisations were already well set up with Employee Assistance Programmes (EAPs), etc before Covid-19 and the global pandemic came along - and those that weren’t pretty much had to fast track these provisions into place once it did. However, what we do often see, and this was reflected to a certain extent in the data, is the following:

HR and wellbeing practitioners working with their organisations to continue to take a more strategic and joined up approach to wellbeing
Managers. Long seen as the linchpin to a positive employee experience (and/or the number one reason why people leave) - there is still a huge gap when it comes to the capability, competence and confidence of our people managers.

Our final reflection and observation is around burnout. We saw this mentioned as a priority, rather than a challenge this time round. Whilst we are seeing a real focus around financial wellbeing in 2023, understandably so, considering the economic challenges being faced by so many, we believe that burnout is going to be a growing area of concern over next 12 months. Particularly, if some of the issues identified, such as workload, boundaries, self care, etc are not sufficiently addressed.

Find out more…

If you would like to know more about wellbeing and the services Psychology Works offer in this area, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

In the meantime, why not check out some of our other blogs and thought pieces. For real time updates and insights you can also find us on LinkedIn, our social media platform of choice: @PsychologyWorks and @mariagardner