The case for wellbeing governance: “you can’t manage what you don’t measure”

It was Peter Drucker, the “father of management consulting”, who said it best: “You can’t manage what you don’t measure.”

Being human

This is as true for employee wellbeing as anything else we want to improve. There are two attributes unique to employee wellbeing, however, that make it particularly challenging to measure – its complexity and its sensitivity.

It is complex because it is human – subjective and multi-faceted, with our state of wellbeing being unique to each of us. And complex because a single scale, score or metric cannot represent our sense of self. Across physical, mental, financial and social wellbeing any one given event, feeling or thought can be enough to undermine every positive measure of our wellbeing.

It is sensitive because it is human – we each have insecurities, egos, hopes, achievements and failings, many of which we may never wish to share with anyone, let alone within the workplace. As a secondary challenge, the workplace itself impacts upon our wellbeing, sometimes positively, but sometimes it can be the cause of our distress.

With all of these factors to consider, it’s no wonder that companies, whilst delivering a range of wellbeing initiatives, are yet find an effective measure of both their people’s health and the impact of those products and services they already have in place.

And so, before we look to a potential solution, I wanted to share a couple of learnings: one from within the benefits industry and another from outside it.

Measurement and management learnings

Workplace pensions have had a head start on health and wellbeing when looking to governance as the model for measurement and management. Various government bodies have demanded effective governance from the pensions sector. But beyond this, it has been embraced and even matured to the point of having relatively accurate measures of member outcomes. Surely this is THE thing to measure.

In addition to that, the technology industry has shown us the value in agile and design thinking. Rather than creating a master plan and a strictly defined end goal, the mind-set of iteration, little and often, and failing quickly, have led to huge progress in solving the problems they’ve set their minds to.

Employers take the wellbeing of their employees more seriously than ever. But anything worth doing is worth doing properly, and if we combine together a sharp focus on employee outcomes and an agile mind-set, then I believe we can overcome the complexity and sensitivities to drive results at a time when they are needed most.

Wellbeing governance

Here is what we’ve learned so far in solving this challenge. First, putting in that governance meeting one, two, four times a year is key. The agenda should answer a simple set of questions using the data you have from the products and services you already use to see how well you can answer those questions. And, if you cannot answer the questions, identify where the gaps are and what can be done about them.

Then, there is one final ingredient to add to the mix. In a group environment, like the workplace, products and services, no matter how good they are, are only utilised in an enduring way if the company culture is there in the first place. A culture built on trust and openness, from the top down, to show people the way. Our wellbeing model considers all aspects of the workplace that touch on culture, environment and the individual to ensure that every part, no matter how seemingly small, aligns to this objective.

To finish as we started, Peter Drucker said: “The best way to predict the future is to create it”. We predict that employers will be the driving force for their employees’ wellbeing, and we’re helping to create it.

The author is Matthew Gregson, head of corporate & online, Howden Employee Benefits & Wellbeing.

This article is provided by Howden Employee Benefits & Wellbeing.