Do wellbeing interventions work?
Spoiler: mostly no.
A recent paper from the Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre indicates that most of the common wellbeing strategies that workplaces are implementing have no effect. That's right, zilch, zip, nada.
The paper reviews wellbeing strategies like mindfulness classes; wellbeing apps; resilience training; relaxation classes; events promoting healthy sleep; mental health & wellbeing coaching; time management training; and financial wellbeing programmes. The sample includes 27,919 workers across 143 organisations in the UK. That's a pretty big study.
The finding of this large scale study was that all of the interventions listed above had a mean effect size of between -0.1 and +0.1, which in simple terms means that they have the same effect as doing nothing at all. That's pretty damning. Every year organisations spend large sums of money on these kinds of interventions. And every year employees ask for them, thinking that these activities will help them feel better. But it doesn't work.
This finding is particularly interesting because it is at odds with a large body of research indicating that these same interventions do improve individual wellbeing. So what’s going on?
In the Oxford paper, the key questions being studied were:
will you feel better if you participate in your workplace’s wellbeing intiative?
will average wellbeing improve if workers participate in wellbeing initiatives?
In the other studies, the question being studied was: will you feel better if you do a mindfulness program? (or insert other type of intervention).
One key difference stands out to me here: In the Oxford study, wellbeing interventions were being provided by the workplace. In the other studies, they were not related to work. There is evidence to suggest that a person’s attitude towards a wellbeing intervention makes a big difference to its effectiveness. The very fact of an intervention being offered and promoted by a workplace sets a different tone for the activity. It’s possible that making the wellbeing intervention feel like it’s something I ‘should do to be better at my job’ negates the potential benefit.
Other key differences likely include dosage, variety, sequence and social support around the activity. In workplace offered initiatives, those variables are all being influenced by the workplace. So for example, perhaps a workplace offers a monthly mindfulness session, but you really need to have a weekly mindfulness practice to see benefits. Or there’s a class on healthy sleeping practices, but it feels disconnected from the workplace practice of responding to emails at night.
From my own experience I have seen a wide range of reactions to wellbeing activities being offered through work. Although people are often interested and appreciate that something is being offered, participation is usually low and the interventions are rarely deep enough and long enough to create meaningful change.
The results are particularly stark for resilience training programs, which have a negative effect (meaning they make people feel worse). We don’t offer resilience training for this reason. The irony is that when a workplace offers resilience training it indicates to people that their inability to cope is because they are defective. Unsurprisingly, that tends to make people feel worse about themselves, which reduces their capacity to rebound.
So what does work, at work?
Autonomy, clarity, fairness & good relationships. Because wellbeing isn't an individual outcome, it's a social one. Humans evolved to operate in groups, and our mental wellbeing is strongly tied to our perceptions of our ability to contribute to & be valued by the groups we belong to.
In order to be able to contribute effectively we need to feel like we know what will be helpful (clarity), and that we are able to do that thing (autonomy). Then we need to believe that if we make that contribution our group members will recognise and reward us for it (fairness).
No amount of resilience training can deliver those things.
The Oxford study found this too. Individual wellbeing was negatively associated with bullying, unrealistic time pressures, discrimination, and strained workplace relationships.
On the other hand, wellbeing was a standard deviation higher for those who understand their duties (clarity) and have task discretion (autonomy). There was also a positive effects noted for having the right training, flexible working options, being consulted on change, fair pay, fair promotions, and good collaboration.
The takeaways
The good news is that there are a lot of things that workplaces can do that benefit wellbeing. The better news is that the things that improve wellbeing, typically also improve productivity. And that’s not an accident - we evolved to work together. When we feel like we are productively contributing to a group effort, it feels good.
If you're interested in how to create the conditions for productive thriving in your organisation, get in touch. We can help.
