If This is Missing from Your Wellness Plan- Start Over!
Written by: Jennefer Raymond
The need for professional wellness support is undeniable. Inflation, layoffs, talks of recession, quiet quitting, quiet firing, underappreciation, social inequalities, and work/life imbalance all can contribute to employee stress and burnout. And for education professionals, the list also includes compassion fatigue, high turnover rates, and low pay.
So, program leaders are considering what, if any, wellness efforts are in place to combat the inevitable influence these factors will have on day-to-day business operations.
Leaders are strategizing their program’s wellness plan. The wellness plan looks to support staff development and engagement, promote a culture of self-care and balance, and prioritize values of respect and communication.
What would you describe as actions, initiatives, or ideas listed in a program’s wellness plan? Perhaps you’re a leader who implements such a plan. Or maybe an employee on the receiving end of these efforts. Consider for a moment, what’s the actual plan?
Of course, every business, organization, and child care center is different. However, there seems to be a very similar wellness plan template which includes sharing the value of wellness in an all-staff email, providing group training on self-care, planning mandatory staff wellness activity, and reminding staff of their available PTO. Repeat as needed.
In my 16+ year career, only four of which have been outside of early education, this template has been my employee experience. Though limited, this template is more than some places receive, which I believe is better than nothing.
Again, what plan are you implementing as a leader or receiving as an employee? Is it similar to the template described, or widely different? But more importantly, does it work? Is employee engagement and wellness increasing or decreasing?
If it is working, celebrate such success! Benchmarks have been met; your plan is to meet the needs of the staff as well as your established objectives. However, if it is not working, pause and consider, what benchmarks have not been met, are you missing something in your wellness plan?
What could be missing? To be well is not just doing well but defining wellness. For example, to be physically well, I need to understand what is and is not healthy for me, not for my neighbor.
My plan needs to include an understanding of the people involved.
When you leave out understanding in your wellness plan, it is no longer a strategy for people's success, but rather a checklist of activities. Without understanding, engagement, and wellness you may continue to experience a decrease despite having a plan in place.
So, are you missing understanding? If so, what is there to understand?
When it comes to staff development, engagement, self-care, balance, respect, communication- and overall well-being factors – we should make every effort to understand the people! When we understand the people in our program, the template becomes an intentional strategy for how to move forward.
Sounds obvious, of course, we understand our employees, we all want the same things.
False! People are different. Different goals, values, personalities, strengths, challenges, concerns, and approaches. Consider that understanding the group and understanding the person may have different results.
Here are three understanding prompts to help improve the efforts of wellness plans:
- Do we understand how people are feeling about work at the moment?
We may falsely assume because teachers are leaving a neighboring program, teachers at your program are unhappy too. Or, because no one has quit, everyone is happy with how things are going. Without accurately understanding where people are, we create plans – or don’t - that are not designed to meet the actual need.
- Do we understand how our work practices might be influencing those feelings?
It’s easy to assume that the challenges faced by our teams are external to our work and thus not our responsibility. When the belief is it’s not our fault, so any effort is more than enough we miss the opportunity to contribute to our own culture. Profession pay inequalities may not be the fault of program culture, but being valued as a contributing member of this team is an influential practice that impacts work.
- Do we understand how to differentiate our support?
The reason the wellness plan template often misses the mark is that it is meant to do the same thing for everyone at one time: email, training, activity, and PTO reminder. However, the support will look different for the employee who is happy with work, but struggling to recognize why they haven’t been promoted, versus the employee who has no immediate interest in promotion but is not getting along with their team members, versus the employee who has been promoted, but struggling to find joy in their new role. Different support for different needs.
Understanding people does not have to be intrusive, complicated, or expensive. Use the wellness template to express collective support and messaging. But use real conversations and interactions to come up with ideas, develop plans, and implement strategies.
“But we have too many employees.” Leaders and supervisors already foster relationships that include individual development plan conversations. The goal is not to uncover deep secrets, but honest empathy is of greater value when encouraging wellness. Develop leaders who listen and connect.
“But this is a great group training opportunity for everyone.” Employees can recognize what is for the group and what is individually for them. Avoid describing group events as individual solutions. Group training is not bad, it’s just not the remedy for all things.
“But employees don’t seem to know what they need.” Our society is not designed to ask us what we need, so it may take some time, and education to answer that question authentically. Consider including as part of the wellness plan people-discovery learning opportunities.
When we promote people’s discovery, we show value for people understanding and when we do that, we’re better positioned to increase people’s wellness!
What is in your wellness plan?