What does well-being really mean?
What does well-being mean? Baby-foot at work? Flexible hours and autonomy? Nice office or real support for your company to improve your work from home environment?
As Chief HR Officer I am happy to share with you this Dave Stachowiak’s podcast. He invited Jim Harter, Chief Scientist of Workplace Management and Wellbeing at Gallup, to deal with the components of well-being.
According to Gallup’s recent research findings, the 5 components of well-being, are, in this order, ”
Career,
Social,
Financial,
Physical,
Community.
Talking about their well-being people report that their strongest links to net thriving are “my job” and “my manager. Far away the quality of the coffee, my office lay-out or how comfortable is the break room. Many people report that “time with a manager” is the worst part of the day, which is consistent with the fact that most of the resignations root causes are a bad relationship with a manager or a colleague. Emotions, before money, are a real ground for quitting as shows in this article of workstars.
So, to influence well-being at work, HR function must first focus on the quality of the managerial relationship. Our managers, even remotely, must trigger regular career conversations and give meaningful feedback every week (best frequency according to Gallup’s findings), and set up clear objectives and expectations. Gallup’s data shows that only half of employees worldwide know what is expected of that at work, a significant contributor to stress and anxiety. In addition, to support the managers to make them naturally concerned by their subordinates’ growth is also a foundation of well-being. What is so surprising to think that the main component of my well-being at work is my manager? We all know persons keeping a job for a while despite they could get a better salary or better living conditions, just because they enjoy the relationship with their manager and their team. However, they won’t keep a job because of the coffee quality or because of the restroom… Of course, the sensitivity to the salary is certainly more important for low salaries, but even, the managerial relationship is still a key component.
Enjoy this conversation between Dave and Jim and think about what you can do to really enhance the well-being within your team or your company.