Having spent the last two years supporting staff through the Covid pandemic and adapting to hybrid working, leaders are now dealing with significant damage to workforce health as a result of the cost-of-living crisis, political tensions, environmental concerns and social inequity.

Rarely have businesses and employees suffered such a wide range of conflicting challenges at the same time. However, the biggest problem for leaders is the unevenness in how employees are experiencing these issues. The nature of hybrid work means that employee responses are more individual and often harder to detect and deal with.

Our research shows that 2022 is the worst year on record for stress and worry among employees, with 58% suffering from stress. How can businesses tackle the unevenness crisis to protect employee health and maintain engagement during these uncertain times?

Understanding unevenness
Businesses were largely unprepared for the wellbeing crisis that took place at the start of the pandemic, but it did prompt a shift in approach. More than two-thirds of organisations introduced new wellbeing benefits from meditation apps to mental health counsellors. 

What they didn’t fully understand was the uneven experiences that would be a consequence of remote and hybrid working. Two years later and they are struggling to recognise the different employee challenges faced by the social, political, and economic issues of the day and how to tackle them simultaneously. 

Leaders need to build a much more nuanced understanding of the different groups of people within the organisation. This should consider everything from neurodiversity to moral beliefs, to living situations, so that the company can more accurately predict the impact of different events on employees. 

There are a number of ways of doing this with varying levels of investment and complexity, but approaches could include: HR consultations with members of staff, surveys and analysis, training managers to build more personal and emotional connections, and creating responsibility through job roles.

Adapting wellbeing benefits
Once companies have developed a more comprehensive understanding of their employees, they can start to move away from generic company-wide wellbeing offerings and introduce benefits that are better suited to the needs of their workforce.  

Our research shows that less than half (46%) of employees deem their organisation’s wellbeing programmes adequate for their individual needs. And while it would be unrealistic to try to maintain a separate wellbeing package for each employee, there is a lot more that businesses can be doing. 

Armed with a deeper knowledge of the personalities that make up their organisation, companies can establish a range of options based on different employee segments. These approaches could tackle specific issues of the times such as the energy crisis. Perhaps parents would benefit from childcare during winter to reduce home heating? Or lower-paid staff could use financial advice to manage increased bills? 

Such approaches would demonstrate care for the individual challenges faced by employees. In a hybrid workplace, where employees are naturally more isolated, this will help to create connection and increase engagement.

Prioritising rest and recovery 
As well as tailoring benefits, leaders can also use this knowledge of its workforce to redesign workplace structures around hybrid work. This is crucial as most organisations are still set up based on traditional constructs, ie. the 9-5 working day, and are not optimised for hybrid working. 

There is no doubt that the hybrid work model can create a number of fatigue factors. This includes staff struggling to disconnect from work, delegate responsibilities and facing digital distractions. Our research shows that 41% of employees work more than 45 hours a week and 93% of HR leaders are increasingly concerned about employee burnout.

Redesigning the hybrid workplace with rest and recovery as a priority will achieve an increase in overall engagement and productivity vs on-site companies. By incorporating things like screen breaks, wellbeing goals or walking meetings into job roles, you can help staff recharge and deliver a consistently higher standard of work. 

With an understanding of its workforce, businesses can tailor this redesign to the needs of employees. They can assess potential new initiatives such as a four-day week or monthly Friday rest days by the impact on different employee personas. In doing so they create structures that support wellbeing and optimise performance during this challenging period.

Improving DEI
Another important area where leaders can tackle unevenness is in their diversity, equity & inclusion (DEI) initiatives. There have been significant increases in DEI investment since the murder of George Floyd, but UK organisations still have a lot of work to do. We’ve found that 55% of employees describe their employers as only slightly or somewhat inclusive.

A factor behind this is focus. DEI in the UK has traditionally covered equity for women and broadly people of colour – while this has had a positive impact, the programmes have often overlooked other groups such as specific ethnicity, disability, LGBTQ+ etc. 

Another problem is that many companies are struggling to align their DEI programmes to the organisation’s objectives and gain widespread support. Our research suggests that 44% believe their colleagues feel alienated by their organisation’s DEI efforts – it is quite ironic that DEI programmes are themselves not inclusive. 

Leaders and HR need to have a comprehensive understanding of both DEI and DEI attitudes within the organisation. They can then use this to create a more suitable company mission, vision, and objective for DEI, deploy clear and actionable goals, and build the necessary skills, knowledge, and advocacy. 

A flourishing DEI programme can have immense power in creating a more inclusive, creative, and action-orientated culture that is more flexible and resilient in times of uncertainty.

And finally…
Over the coming months, relationships between employers and employees are likely to be tested by the economic downturn. We can expect that leaders will be forced to reduce spending at the same time as staff are asking for wage increases to offset rises in inflation. 

Leaders need to reflect on learnings from the pandemic to navigate these challenges. They recognised the importance of having a healthy workforce during periods of considerable change and its impact on positive performance. Highly cohesive teams had a 37% higher likelihood of sustaining workforce health and companies were able to increase discretionary effort by 21% by offering a comprehensive wellbeing package. 

This is the time where businesses need to be building a detailed understanding of their workforce and providing more suitable wellbeing offerings. By demonstrating care for the individual and becoming a pillar of support, they have a better chance of maintaining engagement and retaining the best talent.

Caroline Walsh is managing vice president in the Gartner HR practice

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