On vacation in Asia, I can always look with fascination at the amount of meaningless jobs. Someone receiving your ticket for the ferry. Passing that on to the next one. That person puts a stamp on it, after which the ticket continues the same way back, so that you can then get on the ferry with the stamped ticket. And yes, even in the Netherlands more and more senseless jobs are being created. Intermediary has therefore begun an article series appropriately titled I have (g)a bullshit job. According to the originator of the term, David Graeber, a bullshit job is a role that the person himself thinks is (partly) a bullshit job.
In the latest edition, they ask Hebe Boonzaaijer, of tech company Equinix, to the relevance of her relatively new role as Global Wellbeing Director. A fair question, because what exactly is wellbeing? Former consultant and founder of Quan Wellbeing, Arosha Brewer, asked that question to 500 people and also got 500 different answers. If we already don't know exactly what it is, why a specific role on this topic? Let alone such a heavy one.
As a wellbeing officer, can you make an impact at all? It is anyway an illusion to think that everyone within the company is open to wellbeing initiatives from work. Generalizing, in my view, you have 3 types of employees when it comes to wellbeing:
- 20% usual suspects - who enthusiastically participate in everything, but already do so outside the office.
- 20% critics. I always jokingly call these the SP voters, after their initial slogan Vote Against, Vote SP. They vote against everything. But usually this target group takes care of itself, in their own way.
- Within the remaining 60% you will find the doubters, the overworked, but also the underworked, colleagues who think, 'great fun, but I don't have the time/feeling/fill in the blank'. It is precisely this group you want to reach with your wellbeing initiatives, because that is where you can make the most difference. But how do you do that?
I personally have just never experienced that someone has started healthier living (mentally and/or physically) purely because the employer offered it. People start healthier living because they have experienced something, the doctor has brought them to an understanding, or because they are done feeling less, moderately, tired. It can also come from a more positive angle; they see their colleagues doing it and their enthusiasm is contagious.
Whatever the rationale, as an employer you want a healthier lifestyle only encourage. Energetic and healthy employees are more creative, perform better, cost less, are less likely to be change jobs and are more involved in the organization. Moreover, all these positives also further reinforce each other.
And that that role goes beyond a fruit bowl or personal trainer, is also not news by now. The real wellbeing indicators are about trust in your colleagues, work/life balance (or better the live/life balance), job satisfaction, ownership and social interaction. And that has to be ensured. Solid wellbeing is also no longer about prevention, but focuses on amplification: how do I allow my employees to grow rather than just prevent deterioration?
Nevertheless, it remains a challenge to properly map the impact. In sales you can count the euros, in marketing you can count the ratings, but in terms of wellbeing it is still a very difficult task to directly correlate absenteeism figures or employee retention with a wellbeing initiative. Yet the need is growing. It is not for nothing that market leader Zilveren Kruis has an entire team of consultants on Healthy Business. That precisely the most prominent companies are uniting in the Wellbeing Community whether it Vitality Network and that wellbeing programs, thankfully, are gaining traction.
So back to Intermediair's question: is Hebe's role, as the person responsible for the wellbeing of her colleagues, a crap job? Unfortunately in many companies it is indeed (still is). Too often someone is given the wellbeing piece as a "side project" on the side, with no budget or say, and is allowed to offer the occasional webinar. At TikTok there is currently a video viral which makes fun of exactly this impotence that the wellbeing manager often faces. But that says more about bullshit management from the board, than that the specific role is bullshit.
Because if you get it right, give it authority, budget and the right support, it can only benefit your organization, people and therefore the bottom line. Not bullshit, but essence.
