Workplace Wellbeing Initiatives are a Complete Waste of Time

Don’t bother with them, don’t invest in them, don’t throw any resource at it.

This is the first in a new series of articles for which The Full FX has partnered with people development consultant and coach Martina Doherty, to look at wellbeing in the workplace – our first piece takes a high-level look at what is soon likely to be a $100 billion factor in the financial markets industry…

As someone who works with organisations to help them get the best from their employees, I obviously don’t completely believe this, but I bet the heading got you interested enough to read! The truth is, however, (and this is backed up by research), when wellbeing initiatives are delivered in an effort to solve core organisational issues, or manage deficiencies such as a toxic culture, poor leadership, bullying etc, then these opening statements stand – don’t bother with them, don’t invest in them, don’t throw resource at them. They just won’t work.

Companies around the world spent $61.2 billion on wellbeing interventions in 2021, with that amount projected to grow to $94.6 billion in 2026. Yet stress and burnout continue to rise, particularly in the finance sector where long hours, performance-based compensation, market volatility and limited job autonomy in a heavily regulated market are a default part of the job.

A recent survey published by the Buy-side Trading Community (BTC), which surveyed senior heads and global heads of trading in the asset manager and hedge fund communities, found 20% of those surveyed had considered leaving their role because of mental health issues, citing stress and pressure as key triggers. Survey respondents also said there was an increase in counselling services provided by their employers to help combat this. This is definitely helpful, but this ‘wellbeing washing’ (yes that really is a thing!) i.e. a ‘fix the worker, not the workplace’ approach, is often just a band-aid approach to plaster over the wounds caused by work, and it is not really the answer, especially when research tells us that the workplace has more of an influence on our wellbeing than a doctor or therapist.

So, what is the answer?

I am not in any way suggesting that we can all work and live stress free. It would be completely unrealistic to think that it’s possible to work in a global markets environment without stress, have a job that is always interesting and one where we work with the best and most supportive managers and colleagues. In fact, some stress (eustress) has proven to be beneficial in keeping us motivated and engaged!

There is also the argument not everyone is cut out for a job in global markets, but even so, outsourcing the responsibility of wellbeing to the HR function to deliver as a series of activities to deal with negative stress and burnout doesn’t address the issues if the desk/department/organisational culture is one of bullying, bad leadership behaviour, overwork or permanently bad-tempered colleagues. Resilience training won’t produce any long-term significant positive changes.

Part of the issue is that the concept of wellbeing is completely misunderstood and simplified to represent an employee’s mental health. It’s actually a much wider concept and includes everything from their engagement in their work, reward and recognition, feeling that the work they do matters in the bigger scheme of things, work and social relationships and connections – and much more. How employees feel about their working life i.e. their wellbeing, is a by-product of the culture and that impacts how they perform and ultimately the firm’s bottom line.

To add to this, there is a misguided belief that corporate culture is driven by the ‘tone-from-the-top’, and that the role of managers further down the chain is to endorse this ‘big-C culture’ through regular signposting to the company’s mission, vision and values.  Unfortunately, that means that on a day-to-day basis these managers often neglect to see what is happening in their own team (‘small-c culture’) – hopefully not through malicious intent, but more likely because of the busy nature of their role. They are focused on performance as the primary indicator of their competency, have a misjudged assumption that they ‘would know if something was wrong’, or exhibit a complete lack of self-awareness of the impact of their own moods and behaviour on their immediate team.

Leaders and managers in every domain need to get to grips with where the real problems might lie – and that means measuring wellbeing beyond regular engagement pulse surveys

The challenge there is for them to connect and align the big-C culture values to the small-c culture and the daily reality of those in their team – which might also mean an honest and possibly uncomfortable look at themselves and the environment they create through their behaviours. It also means calling out and dealing with any deviant behaviour that doesn’t align.

Building a positive culture isn’t only a top-down activity. It needs to be intentionally built from the middle out if it is to have any sort of lasting impact or relevance to employees across all ranks and roles. Referring back to the mental health survey findings from BTC, it is also quite possible that in the process of doing so, some of the stress and pressure that senior heads are experiencing could also be alleviated!

The average person spends 90,000 hours or over a third of their life at work and in FX and global markets this number is probably even higher. That’s a long time to operate in ‘coping’ mode. Workplace wellbeing is not the same as managing mental health and while it should on everyone’s agenda, I don’t think generic company-wide activities to deal with stress and burnout are the answer. They might tick that box to be seen to actively manage employee wellbeing but if the culture is deficient then their impact will be shortlived.

Leaders and managers in every domain need to get to grips with where the real problems might lie – and that means measuring wellbeing beyond regular engagement pulse surveys. There are tools out there that take a more holistic view of measuring wellbeing and combine quantitative and qualitative data. Use these as the starting point and consider external objective expertise to help you interpret the data and look at where your culture (or even your leadership skills) might be flawed, as well as help you put a plan in place to rectify any issues.

In the words of management guru Peter Drucker “what gets measured get managed” – just make sure that it’s the right things that are being measured!

Martina Doherty is an independent business psychologist, coach and trainer who specialises in creating and delivering bespoke people development, cultural change and employee engagement programmes in high growth companies.  She has 20+ experience in financial markets and is also an executive board member of the ACI UK Financial Markets Association. For more information visit www.martinadoherty.com