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Could workplace well-being be the secret to organisational success?

Workplace mental health is a key topic today with remote work arrangements that reflect declining engagement levels and increasing mental health strains. Associate Professor Trevor Yu from the Division of Leadership, Management & Organisation at Nanyang Technological University Singapore’s (NTU) Singapore Nanyang Business School (NBS) shares his views on the subject of employee well-being – What is it? How can leaders engage with it? What is the role of leaders in cultivating joy and a sense of meaning for their employees in the workplace?

Early into the pandemic, many leaders shrugged off any potential adverse effects of remote and hybrid working to focus on short-term business survival. Says Prof Yu: “You have essentially taken people out of a normal type of life and work environment and now we are noticing a general lack of communication [in employees], as well as an inability to function normally.”

Instead of concerning themselves only with their employees’ output on the clock, Prof Yu says that today’s leaders are now “recognising that work is not everything, and that people want to lead a more balanced life that allows them to thrive and flourish outside of work as well.” As a professor of graduate students in the MBA programmes at NBS, Prof Yu is partly responsible for instilling an awareness of the importance of well-being in his students.

5 things leaders should do to promote employee well-being

Work-life balance is considered by many to be an impossible ideal, but Prof Yu believes it’s possible — and important — for employers to support their employees and prioritise a fairer split between work and non-work domains. There are several ways to do this, he says.

1. Build a corporate culture and institute policies that recognise employee well-being as a corporate priority

“The challenge for modern leaders is to be able to manage competing interests,” explains Prof Yu. This means reorienting office rules to prioritise mental health even if the changes seem to go against conventional practice.

He recommends making strategic use of synchronous and asynchronous communication methods to “ensure that people are getting opportunities to contribute while at the same time giving them the flexibility to take care of other responsibilities, like kids or elderly parents,”. In the long run, this is good for the bottom line, too, as workers can now “focus more on work without distractions and without having to worry.”

2. Reframe HR benefits within the context of employee well-being

More than ever, HR personnel should be encouraged to make commitments that nurture employee well-being. Instead of leaving workers without guidance on the use of their benefits, Prof Yu suggests that HR “educate employees about their employment contracts and benefits to address their well-being, like explaining the various leave entitlements,”. “Treat this as a specific timeout to get your mental wellness right to recharge”.

Leaders can go the extra step and encourage their employees to take advantage of their benefits whenever possible. This includes reminding them to take breaks, advocating the use of vacation hours and flexible leave policies, and making sure employees are aware of company-provided insurance and health services.

3. Find ways to build interpersonal connections despite the physical distances

Remote or hybrid work has taken away the “accidental collisions”, or chance meetings between workers, that encourage collaboration and create happier, more productive work environments. “The social environment of the office can add meaning to one’s work,” Prof Yu says, “and in a remote/hybrid work setup, that important element is just lost.”

While technology has contributed to the isolation remote workers feel, it can also be used to rebuild the personal connections that were severed by work-from-home arrangements. For instance, he points to certain companies that use platforms that help with employee pulse checks.

4. Ensure that transparency and fairness continue to be key values in employee management

Building on his earlier point on managing competing interests, Prof Yu says there’s a need for particularly skilful leaders going forward who can negotiate competing interests and conflicts. It won’t be easy, but leaders must be guided by one key principle: “to be as transparent and as fair in the way that you do things”.

Prof Yu believes that workplaces are trending towards greater diversity. While younger employees may have concerns about job security; older workers have concerns about adapting to online/hybrid work. In addition, dealing with a team where half the team are full-time employees while the other half are contractors or part-timers who may not consider themselves as part of your organisation adds to the complex dynamics of employee management addressing workers with varying concerns and agendas.

5. Institutionalise established talent management and HR practices on a more systemic level

A company-wide emphasis on personal well-being will need to be enshrined in the organisation chart. Prof Yu suggests that offices “create a particular role/office designated to take care of employee well-being.” They will need to be specifically qualified for the job, have the right connections to mental health experts, ensure there’s a healthy workplace in terms of ergonomics, and that employees have the right equipment to do their work properly.

How MBA participants internalise employee well-being

Executives who enrol for NBS’s MBA programmes quickly learn to prioritise optimal employee well-being. It’s not a hard sell – many of them have had personal encounters with the issue before.

“The participants actually come to our programmes with their own experiences from their jobs – some of them are good, some of them not so good,” says Prof Yu. “They can actually relate to this need for a more human approach to management,” he adds.

Through the MBA programmes, our participants learn the leadership and interpersonal relationship management skills that are key pillars in NBS’s MBA programmes.

Today’s disrupted business climate calls for leaders with a more nuanced toolkit for people management, including a full suite of soft skills. MBA participants taking on greater leadership responsibilities will be well-prepared as they move up the corporate ladder, learning “not just good decision-making skills, but also how to manage relationships,” Prof Yu says. “This humanistic side of management – it’s what we have been increasingly trying to inculcate into the programme.

“Our participants learn that human capital is a key resource they are responsible for and to turn this resource into a competitive advantage for their business, they must invest in ways to help their colleagues or employees reach their full potential.”

Trevor Yu is an Associate Professor in the Division of Leadership, Management & Organisation at the Nanyang Business School, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He teaches executives and undergraduates various courses involving the management of human capital including strategic HRM, change management, consulting research methodology, total rewards, and organisational behaviour and design.

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