The topic of employee wellbeing stays in HR priorities since the pandemic. Companies are actively developing programs, doing a lot of projects and initiatives. However, recently there has been another concept that has been discussed and which allows us to understand whether a company really cares about employees or is just trying to comply with the «popular agenda». This topic is wellbeing washing. Let’s understand what it is, how it affects employees and company culture, and how to avoid it.
Wellbeing washing is a new term used when employees are given a false sense of support. Similar to ‘greenwashing’ (when company stated commitment to being environmentally friendly which in reality is not true), wellbeing washing occurs when a company says a lot about employee wellbeing and launch some projects, but if you dig deeper you can see that they do not work with the main problems and don’t give a real help. They promise a lot, but do little or nothing, and in general the environment and culture itself is not conducive to wellbeing, but rather creates stress and contributes to burnout.
Companies are now focusing more than ever on employee morale, mental health and overall wellbeing. This is partly due to numerous studies that show a correlation between wellbeing and positive effects for business — increased productivity, creativity, and the ability to recover from a crisis.
That is why in 2020 companies started to create systemic programs to support wellbeing on a mass scale (we personally, as experts, have created such programs with clients and trained dozens of HR-specialists). But in the modern concept of people-centric organisation, creating program is not enough — you need to develop culture, change approaches, and retrain leaders. And this is much more difficult. And this is where the temptation arises to simply invest money in the program, make a set of benefits and not change anything inside. This is how the phenomenon of wellbeing washing arises.
How does wellbeing washing looks like?
We touched on this topic in one of our podcasts «Happy@Work» and, in our opinion, this topic is becoming more and more relevant. One international study showed that 51% of employees in companies believe that the company really cares about them. Yes, they see initiatives like free fruit in the office, mental health aides and health walks. But many serious issues like unrealistic workloads, workplace bullying or stress-inducing deadlines, and toxic culture go unchanged.
What’s more, it’s not uncommon to create situations that only make things worse. So some companies may offer break rooms designed for employees to take a break, but managers in the same office have negative attitudes toward those who use them. Or a company opens a cool gym in the office, but employees are so loaded that they are stressed out and unhappy with themselves for not being able to attend (it also increase employees stress).
Another example is when a company officially talks about supporting mental wellness and advocates avoiding extracurricular activities. But in practice, it publicly praises an employee who consistently arrives first and leaves last, ignoring the fact that it leads to burnout.
Employees see this, but also observe a disconnect between words and deeds. One study found that although 71% of employers organize events such as mental health awareness days, only 36% provide mental health support that their employees would rate as good or excellent.
What are the negative consequences of wellbeing washing?
There is clearly an imbalance — companies are being told the right words, but they are not putting them into practice. How this affects employees.
Increased stress and burnout
Unsurprisingly, a very real consequence of wellbeing washing is inevitable stress and burnout. When formal activities — awareness days or inviting a psychologist to lecture — are done on the subject of burnout, but in fact the company does nothing on a systemic level, the problem persists and worsens over time. Employees may even feel pressured to maintain a semblance of well-being despite the fact that they are struggling.
This is emotionally and mentally draining for the employee and usually leads to burnout and taking an extended leave of absence or simply leaving for another position. It is not enough for managers to know the signs and symptoms of high levels of stress at work, they must offer practical solutions at all levels: personal, team, and company-wide.
When we are asked to run a happiness marathon or a resilience marathon, we always discuss with the company as a whole the situation and what aspects are important to pay attention to. After all, the problem of stress and burnout is not solved only at the level of a particular employee — it is a complex program of changes. If the company realizes this and has set a course for the development of a human-centered culture, this is the right way, and marathons and various educational initiatives will perfectly complement the action plan.
Lack of adequate support
When a company provides benefits or talks beautifully about what it does, it can be worse if the company doesn’t address the issue at a deep level. Very often the topic of mental health is stigmatized, people are afraid to talk about it. Employees who are struggling need someone they can turn to, or someone they can lean on, to lighten the load and clear the air. But if this isn’t accepted in the company, if heroism is encouraged, it causes an even greater sense of isolation for those who are struggling.
What’s more, it can affect the employee’s personal life. A company that doesn’t offer flexibility and still has high workload demands doesn’t promote a healthy work-life balance. This, in turn, prevents employees from relaxing and spending time with family and friends as they desperately try to keep up with everything. And then the risk of burnout increases significantly.
Exacerbation of existing symptoms and illnesses
When mental health issues are not addressed, when it’s not discussed publicly, the result is that with outwardly beautiful programs in reality, employees continue to get sick.
In situations like this, mental health issues are exacerbated and physical health can be affected. The link between physical and mental health is well known and can include weight gain, sleep problems and chronic illnesses, as well as a host of other complexities. We all have days when the workload and pressure of the workplace seems overwhelming. For employees experiencing well-being issues, this can happen more quickly and the effects can be more profound.
A growing sense of apathy and decreasing engagement
Employees become more engaged when companies show they care. If an employee feels like a cog in the machine, if they feel that their well-being is not important to their employer and see a big gap between words and deeds, they are likely to become disillusioned, stop participating and become indifferent to their organization as a whole. This can lead to apathy and low motivation, which will ultimately affect performance.
It will affect team relationships as well. If people cannot talk frankly about problems, it will lead to a drop in trust. This will affect the quality of collaboration, the atmosphere and ultimately productivity.
Unfortunately, the problems of stress and burnout remain at the top of the topics that HR is dealing with today. And taking into account the situation on the labor market, taking into account the «accumulated fatigue» cosmetic measures cannot do with cosmetic measures.
Each of us is individually responsible for our own mental health and well-being, but there’s no denying that organizations also have a responsibility to their employees. Toxic workplace practices and unrealistic expectations combined with a general reluctance to create genuine wellbeing programs leave employees frustrated, upset and unmotivated.
If you’re putting wellbeing support programs in place and they’re not working, performance is deteriorating — look at whether you’re doing wellbeing washing. Maybe it’s time to go beyond ‘cosmetic’ treatments and commit to meaningful, evidence-based initiatives, and create a culture of trust, support and open communication so that employees can thrive at work.
