JONATHAN COOK: Some wellness at work programmes just don’t work well

I have no doubt that employers should pay attention to the growing incidence of stress and mental illness in the workplace.

Aggravated by the isolation and discontinuities created by Covid-19, we seem to have a pandemic of distress at work and at school. As always, some people are thriving as challenges bring out the best in them, but there are too many casualties. 

But do wellness programmes at work achieve what they are supposed to? A research paper by William Fleming from the Wellness Research Centre at Oxford University has cast doubt on this. Research often leaves more questions than answers, and one has to read it in context, but this was a carefully executed survey of 46,336 workers in 233 organisations in Britain.

Fleming looked at a range of individual-level mental wellbeing interventions, including mindfulness, resilience and stress management training, time management and various wellbeing apps. Then he threw volunteering opportunities into the analysis, as they have been found to improve workers’ wellbeing through an increased sense of purpose, accomplishment and social resources. 

Surprisingly, he found that only volunteering had a positive effect on workers’ sense of wellbeing. Some programmes seem even to have had a slight negative effect. One reason for this may be that if participants are still stressed after receiving stress-reduction training, for example, they may blame themselves and become even more discouraged, with reduced self-efficacy.

Fleming looked only at programmes designed to help individuals cope with mental and emotional challenges; he did not include interventions aimed at physical health activities such as exercise, diet or sleep. 

There are criticisms of Fleming’s findings, including that his research is not longitudinal, that it is based on self-report, and that he groups together a number of different approaches, some of which may be of low quality. But his sample size and careful statistics are way better than many of the findings he contradicts.

His point is not that these programmes do not work, but that as workplace wellness programmes they focus on helping the individual cope with adverse conditions, rather than addressing unhealthy conditions in the workplace.

As a group of researchers stated independently in The Lancet in October: “There is a disproportionate focus on interventions directed towards individual workers and illnesses, compared with interventions for improving working conditions and enhancing mental health.” 

Of course, each of us as individuals has a responsibility to adopt healthy lifestyles, and companies should encourage all of their staff to do so. In my view, the “big five” for healthy living are exercise, healthy diet, enough sleep, good relationships and a source of meaning in life — whether at work or through some other engagement. An optimistic mindset and avoiding escape through alcohol or drugs would take that to a “significant seven”. 

Employers have limited opportunity to affect workers’ exercise regime, diet, sleep or drinking habits, but can make a difference to their relationships, sense of meaning in life and optimism, through how the organisation is managed.

The World Health Organisation points out that among other benefits decent work provides a livelihood; a sense of confidence, purpose and achievement; an opportunity for positive relationships and inclusion in a community; and a platform for structured routines. 

Employers can reduce the toxic effect of work from stressors like excessive workloads or under-use of skills; lack of control over job design or workload; unclear or conflicting work roles; a negative organisational culture with limited support; unsafe or poor physical working conditions; violence, harassment or bullying; discrimination and exclusion; and job insecurity, inadequate pay and poor investment in career development. 

Employers should attend to the health of their employees by focusing on things that make a real difference in their work lives. 

• Cook chairs the African Management Institute.