DEMONSTRATING IMPACT: DATA MAPPING AND EVIDENCE-BASED WELLBEING METRICS

A report for WorkSafe VictoriaOctober 2017

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C O N T E N T S BACKGROUND

Background

Report Overview

Summary of Recommendations

Key Review Insights

How do we Empower Participation Across the Organisation?

Highlights from Project Analyses

Data Collection Protocol

Boosting Wellbeing

Conclusions and Future Directions For Collaboration

Report prepared for Dale Nissen, Manager Employee Health and Safety,

and Ms Brenda Haycroft Senior Advisor, People & Culture, WorkSafe Victoria

by Professors Giles Hirst (ANU), Angela Martin (Pracademia, UTAS) and

Dr Sarah Dawkins of UTAS.

Acknowledgements: Dr Reza Kachouie of Monash University,

Mr Muhammad Aunib Zaidi and Moussab Loraibi of ANU, and Ms Brenda Haycroft

of WSV for their assistance.

WorkSafe Victoria (WSV) aims to create a thriving organisation that leads by example demonstrating best practices for employee wellbeing. A critical component of this is being able to use data to monitor improvements, evaluate the impact of organisational changes and investigate return on investment (ROI) for wellbeing initiatives.

WSV collects diverse and valuable data, especially about wellbeing, its management costs and key performance indicators. Until now, different parts of the organisation have run these processes relatively independently of each other. A comprehensive review of data sources and dimensions was commissioned. This executive summary report describes key actions needed to:

1. leverage and integrate different sources of data related to wellbeing,

2. ensure best practice in terms of what should be measured in relation to wellbeing, and

3. enhance wellbeing initiatives at WSV.

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Specific recommendations of this project are provided in four areas: improved data management, enhancing wellbeing metrics, further boosting wellbeing and pursuing excellence in university/industry research collaboration (see the full report for a comprehensive overview).

A protocol has been developed to ensure data can be used for strategic analysis and combined with other data sets. A review of international best practice and evidence-based wellbeing metrics has also been conducted and opportunities to enhance measurement approaches described.

Finally, suggestions regarding additional ways to boost wellbeing in WSV that take a dual protection-promotion emphasis, consistent with WSVs approach to creating a safe and positive work environment, are also put forward.

This report summarizes the rationale and directions for a more strategic approach to wellbeing development and evaluation (see the full report for a comprehensive overview).

Key priorities for WSV strategy include the following:

1. assess return on investment (ROI) from investing valuable financial and employee resources into wellbeing;

2. ensure WSV is using ‘world-class measures of wellbeing’;

3. assess what does and doesn’t work in terms of wellbeing initiatives; and

4. promote continuous improvement and demonstrate its benefit for the wider community of WSV stakeholders.

REPORT OVERV IEW SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDAT IONS

Improved Data Management

Working with providers, agencies and universities to ensure any data collected can be linked/integrated will allow for more powerful analyses to be conducted.

Any future survey work should allow WSV to: (i) access de-identified data with groupings aligned to divisional HR data, (ii) marry data to key outcomes e.g. HR data, key performance indicators, costs and other surveys, and (iii) request informed consent from employees to use data in a de-identified form for WSV for organisational development (OD)/research purposes. Team/work unit outcome data would be an important complement to existing approaches and important preparation for ROI methodologies.

A data collection protocol has been developed in this project to ensure data can be used for strategic analysis and combined with other data sets. This is ready for immediate implementation.

An employee wellbeing data-analytics strategy and platform should be developed including dashboards that automatically link all databases together for high level interrogation. Involving employees in the development of a WSV wellbeing data analytics strategy is critical towards fostering acceptance of the benefits for the individual and the organisation and reassuring employees about the confidential nature of the data and its interrogation. ?

Enhanced metrics

HR data is a huge determinant of costs. More detailed measurement could enhance management of this. HR data could also include turnover, disputes, critical incidents, reports of conflicts and bullying in different groups and roles within the organisation to provide additional data to self-reported indicators in Employee Opinion Surveys (EOS) and WorkWell surveys.

Additional domains of measurement that may be considered to supplement future data collection include psychological capital (PsyCap; positive psychological capacities directed toward work challenges and performance) and drivers of engagement and participation in wellbeing programs and initiatives.

? Best practice suggests an integrated approach to managing wellbeing that simultaneously focuses on preventative, proactive and responsive approaches. Communicating this to employees also draws together differing philosophies and approaches to wellbeing. It is recommended that any data analytics strategy should also align with key indicators of each of these critical aspects of wellbeing promotion. ?

Further Boosting Wellbeing

WSV has already embarked on a forward-looking strategy to build employee wellbeing, particularly though its interventions that recognize the critical role of leaders in fostering growth and empowerment. Our team have provided an evaluation tool for this initiative.

Suggestions regarding additional ways to boost wellbeing in WSV that take a dual protection-promotion emphasis, consistent with WSVs approach to creating a safe and positive work environment, have also been put forward. In particular we advocate considering the role of collective capacities, such as team Psychological Capital, could also be explored as a means of boosting climate, wellbeing and performance. This work moves WSV to the forefront of OD practice.

Pursuing excellence in university/industry research collaboration

Opportunities for cost effective future research collaboration between WSV and the research partners in this project have also been identified for consideration, particularly in relation to assessing ROI from developing leaders and further positive interventions for wellbeing development. ?

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This review assesses the extent to which WSVs measurement strategy enables matching of datasets to allow ROI analyses to be conducted. An extensive review was undertaken to highlight potential opportunities to enhance WSVs profile of wellbeing metrics.

An integrated approach to workplace mental health

An integrated approach to workplace mental health represents three key areas of action: protecting worker mental health from harm, promoting the positive aspects of work and worker strengths and capacities, and addressing mental health problems as they arise at work, regardless of cause.

Essentially, the protective focus of the ‘prevent harm’ thread aims to identify and address factors that can undermine the wellbeing of employees – and therefore encourages employers to fulfil their responsibility to provide a safe and healthy working environment. The overall goal of the ‘promoting the positive’ thread is to complement the risk reduction approach by promoting those characteristics that can strengthen individual and organisational health and can lead to high levels of positive wellbeing.

Maintaining this dual protection-promotion emphasis can benefit wellbeing in many ways, not least in encouraging organisations to examine the strengths and weaknesses of their working environments, to keep a more ‘balanced scorecard’ in relation to monitoring the performance of their various systems, policies and practices, and to properly identify and mobilise the resources available in their organisations to build workplaces that are not just safer and fairer but are also more attractive to and engaging for employees.

The ‘manage illness’ thread enhances mental health literacy, the knowledge, beliefs, and skills that aid in the recognition, treatment, rehabilitation, and return to work of working people affected by mental disorders.

The integrated approach is supported by evidence for each of the three action areas individually, but there is considerable impetus for a best practice approach that implements and evaluates the three areas together to represent a holistic employee psychological wellbeing strategy. As noted in a recent white paper on the integrated approach (that WSV staff participated in creating), there is some consensus emerging regarding the priorities for Australian organisations.

Three key priorities in each of the areas below are described:

Preventing harm Promoting the positive Managing mental ill health

1. Develop knowledge, skills and resources for psychological health and safety at all levels in workplaces.

2. Require and support employers to develop a psychological health and safety strategy, policy and procedures.

3. Develop emotional and social intelligence in leaders and man-agers.

1. Design jobs to promote positive mental health.

2. Provide training and development in positive approaches.

3. Assess and promote the strengths of individuals and teams.

1. Undertake stigma reduction and mental health literacy programs to foster a work environment where people are able to seek help early without adverse consequences in the workplace.

2. Ensure clear roles, responsibilities and processes for supporting employees with mental illness.

3. Implement flexible work practices to facilitate accommodation of individual needs.

KEY REV IEW INS IGHTS

Wellbeing and data analytics

Business in the Community (BITC), a UK responsible business charity with over 850 member companies, released its Public Reporting Guidelines for employee engagement and wellbeing in 2012 which state:

“metrics may be in an aggregated or disaggregated form, and may include a combination of management (process) metrics and performance (impact) metrics. There should be time series data associated with the metrics so the audience gets a sense for the performance trend and trajectory of travel. Performance metrics should also include a balance of leading and lagging indicators. The audience is looking for evidence which demonstrates the costs/risks avoided as well as the benefits realised. In some instances, qualitative narrative in the form of case studies, can be helpful in demonstrating the impact of company efforts”.

The field of HR analytics has enabled applications with functionality to move beyond reporting and provide the groundwork for data-driven decision-making. HR analytics is defined as:

“an evidence-based approach for making better decisions on the people side of the business; it consists of an array of tools and technologies, ranging from simple reporting of HR metrics all the way up to predictive modeling…… it does not focus exclusively on HR functional data, but integrates data from different internal functions and data external to the firm.”

HR analytics enables evidence-based decision making as it provides Executives and HR business partners and other stakeholders with far greater dynamic insights into their own organisation. It does this in three ways:

1. HR MonitoringRegular reporting enables you to measure and keep track of the pulse of the organisation by assessing key workforce metrics. New trends and opportunities can be spotted early on and emerging problems can be addressed before they significantly impact the business.

2. Management informationWhen provided in a simple HR report can empower managers to understand how to do their work more effectively. It can embed a culture where being concerned about employee welfare is a normal part of daily life and successful working relationships. An HR report can inform managers about relevant developments in their teams and department. When, for example, a division struggles with high turnover and a high time-to-hire, managers will be more likely to put emphasis on retaining employees and will be aware of risks like longer replacement times when someone is about to leave.

3. Tracking and developing precise strategies for different areasHR reporting also offers a great way to track key problem areas in a transparent way. Transparency in turnover rates per manager will encourage leaders to pay closer attention to retaining employees. This also equips HR and more senior managers to have developmental conversations to enhance wellbeing.

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Enhancement of wellbeing metrics

The current wellbeing assessment strategy is very sound with comprehensive literature reviews (including those provided by partners such as FBG and ISCRR) informing the wellbeing strategy and selection of assessment tools. In the data sources mapped for this project, key constructs in employee and organisational wellbeing are reasonably well covered. However, when comparing the domains assessed, areas in which WSV could look to supplement their assessments have been identified.

Psychological capital (PsyCap) is a positive organisational behavior construct comprising hope, optimism, resilience and self-efficacy related to one’s work. From a PsyCap perspective, hope relates to persevering towards goals, and when necessary, redirecting paths to goals; self-efficacy relates to having the confidence to take on and put in the necessary effort to succeed at challenging tasks; resilience refers to the capacity to

‘bounce back’ and even beyond to attain success when faced with problems and adversity; and optimism refers to making positive attributions about succeeding now and in the future.

Previous research has demonstrated that PsyCap is positively related to wellbeing and job satisfaction, and negatively related to job stress and tension. The primary explanation for these relationships is that employees with higher PsyCap tend to expect good things to happen to them at work (optimism); believe they can create their own success (hope and efficacy); and are persistent in the face of challenges (resilience) when compared with employees with lower PsyCap.

PsyCap is considered to be a ‘state-like’ psychological resource, rather than a personality trait, hence it is developable via brief training interventions which show strong ROI in relation to work performance. PsyCap interventions promote the development of positive thinking patterns and approaches to work that can challenge deep-seated assumptions and beliefs over time. A team-level intervention has also been recently published and is available for developing a collective form of PsyCap regarding team work goals.

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Factors affecting employee participation in wellbeing programs are important to identify as improved employee health and morale and reduced medical claims and absenteeism depends on the engagement of those employees who are at increased risk of ill health.

A systematic review of worksite health promotion programmes, showed that levels of employee participation varied from 10% to 64%, with a median of 33%. Higher participation has been observed when the programme consisted of multiple components, or when the programme was aimed at multiple behaviours.

Incentives for participation have mainly been studied in relation to physical health promotion programs. These can be broadly defined as intrinsic (e.g. the participant received a monthly chart of his or her progress) or extrinsic (e.g. financial or other rewards for employees performing healthy behaviours or on the basis of an annual health risk appraisal). In contrast to incentives offered by the organisation, it is also important to consider the appeal of the incentive from the standpoint of the participant (e.g. convenient time, location, and paid time off). It may be helpful to survey employees about their preferences for incentives.

HOW DO WE EMPOWERPARTICIPATION ACROSS

THE ORGANISATION?Efforts to build an organisational culture of participation in wellbeing programs should include strategies for:

Although indicators of organisational performance are included in current metrics, individual and/or group-level performance data could enhance ability to calculate ROI by adding to cost reduction measures around absenteeism and turnover. WSV’s current approach to employee performance assessment involves regular ‘check ins’ with their supervisor and while performance ‘scores’ are not recorded, these meetings may produce some form of data for capture. Any issues with wellbeing or performance identified in these conversations could be addressed through interventions such as those we detail later in this report.

Increasingly, organisations are opting for team performance measurement to avoid restrictions of range in individual performance metrics and to build a shared sense of responsibility for outcomes.

A key cost for public sector organisations is turnover. Although WSV currently measures turnover intentions, actual separations by workgroup could also be a useful metric for ROI calculations to consider in future.

social marketing that creates strong group norms around participation for

different employee cohorts;

employee input into the design of offerings so they are needs based (program reference groups and champions/advocates);

leaders’ communication of the organisation’s commitment to mutual responsibility for wellbeing (in line with the dual protection/promotion emphasis discussed in the integrated approach);

employee perceptions of value to be gained from programs (communicating the personal and business case for participation).

employee champions located across different parts of the organisation whom are positive

about their experience in these programs become important advocates. These employees

could serve as a comparable approach as ‘grass-root advocates’ or as compared to safety

context as safety wardens (or in this case well-being wardens).

The combination of senior management encouragement and local support from peers ensures different parts of the organisation encourage and empower program engagement. Such an approach ensures whether the employee uses senior managers and/or peers there is strong concordance describing why investing in the development of one’s well-being is important.

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Data that has been analysed in this project allows us to see variations in group level sick leave that may indicate wellbeing interventions may be particularly important. Although financial investment in wellbeing has gone up over the last few years, sick leave has also trended upwards, but recent data shows this may have begun to trend in the right direction. These trends are not uniform across HR groups (Divisions and Branches).

Whilst the data available for analysis in this project provides baseline indicators of some of the key metrics one would expect to see in a wellbeing evaluation, the data is currently limited in relation to linkages. Understanding key drivers of different forms of work attendance behaviour (absenteeism and presenteeism) and longer periods of sick leave is possible with changes identified in our recommended data collection protocol.

More data analytic work is required to ensure any reduced costs associated with investment are sustained and consistent. Linkages among these metrics (and widening the data sources beyond what can presently be analysed) would enable WSV to have a much more precise appraisal of the efficacy of programs in terms of business costs and program ROI.

HIGHL IGHTS FROMPROJECT ANALYSES

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In order for WSV to leverage the full potential of future data collection especially with providers we recommend following protocol:

Implementing this protocol will enable internal and external data to be married and enable calculating the true ROI of investment in wellbeing, culture, climate and leadership.

DATA COLLECT ION PROTOCOL

Capture demographic data about units and individual’s

membership in units.

Ensure this demographic data is consistent with groupings used for HR metrics e.g. absenteeism, separation, return to work costs at a unit level.

Retain HR data over time and in unit level for time series

analysis.

Ensure all provider contracts require them

to share their data at either an individual level or unit

level as well as organisational level.

Should individual level be required, a detailed confidentiality strategy needs to be developed.

Request access to use any data collected from

WSV employees, providing appropriate

confidentiality protections and information

around treatment and protection of data.

A data analytic strategy prepared prior to collecting data

(e.g. whether data can be analysed as a unit level set of averages or

needs to be analysed at individual level).

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Nurturing employee wellbeing is cost-effective for organisations and leads to higher employee job satisfaction, productivity and organisational success, and reduced absenteeism. Positive approaches for developing employee wellbeing are intentional activities (e.g. training, coaching) that build individual and/or group positive emotions, psychological strengths and personal resources (e.g. resilience).

A recent review of positive interventions designed to enhance employee wellbeing found that 87% studies reported favourable effects on at least one wellbeing outcome measure. Intervention gains in employee personal resources (e.g. PsyCap) as rated by a second person (e.g. other rater) have been found.

Although there is emerging evidence to support the use of positive approaches for employee wellbeing development, it is recommended that organisations be cautious about focusing too narrowly on building employee strengths and personal resources, without also considering ways of enhancing job resources – e.g. aspects of the work environment, such as autonomy, feedback and supervisor coaching.

When job resources are insufficient, employee stress and burnout increase, and subsequently, employee strengths and personal resources are depleted. Thus, in unsupportive work environments, increases in employee resources and personal strengths that are gained from wellbeing interventions are unlikely to counteract the effects that result from a lack of job resources. Interventions that build team capacity such as team PsyCap could be explored as a means of boosting wellbeing and team performance. Hence, employee wellbeing approaches are most successful when they both building strengths and personal resources but also provide practice relevant skills such as coaching and job enrichment that may transition across a range of work domains.

Furthermore, leaders play a focal role influencing how individuals view the workplace, their sense that there is concern for their welfare, opportunities to develop and feeling that they are valued. As a consequence, the role of leaders either fostering or hampering wellbeing is of great importance.

Recent studies have found authentic leadership builds employees’ sense of meaning and deeper interest in work fostering well-being, creates constructive work climates fostering well-being, and enhances attachment to the workplace and in turn reduces stress. Several promising possibilities from the application of authentic leadership approaches are:

1. The synergy and natural links between ideas covered by positive psychology programs and authentic leadership: both are about building employee strengths, and helping people understand what is most important to their character;

2. A focus on understanding one’s purpose so that employees more strongly connect their work with making a difference in the world. This sense of meaning and purpose, in terms of the significance of one’s work, becomes critical when employees face change and adversity. It also generates lasting motivational benefits beyond well-being that extend to helping, citizenship behaviour and performance;

3. Authentic leadership development programs have been found to have success in a range of contexts with strong translation of the ideas into high impact leader development programs.

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FURTHER BOOSTING WELLBEING

CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE D IRECT IONS

FOR COLL ABOR AT IONWSV current metrics offer a solid baseline and include high-quality instruments. There is much to be gained from improving data linkages and incorporating a multilevel approach to analysis.

If measures were linked it would enable assessing ROI on well-being programs. Such information is useful to select, manage and target wellbeing programs for different area and groups. For example, interventions can be measured and targeted at individuals or groups according to their profiles and associated metrics and in term linked to financials. To advance this we identified 3 areas of potential further collaboration:

1. Standardized evaluation tools

2. Wellbeing development opportunities

3. Employee involvement and well-being survey

Funding models that reduce WSV research expenditure could be explored for future projects. For example, in an Australian Research Council linkage project, WSV determines a key initiative that requires investigation, assigns budgets, engages appropriate OD experts and University partners to evaluate this. The University partners produce a detailed funding submission to seek matching funds from the Federal government (this can effectively add between 50-100% of budget).

1. Standardised Evaluation Tools

Leaders’ behaviour is a significant predictor of employees’ psychological wellbeing and WSV is making an important strategic investment in the development of its leaders, with a view to investing further in a broader section of this workforce. This provides an opportunity to enhance core skills relating to self-managing wellbeing, and coaching and developing wellbeing in others. We understand there are four components to this program relating to:

• Induction • Job design and early intervention

• Leading for well-being • Developing growth mind-sets.

With such an important investment of capital and time we recommend assessing measuring the programs and assessing ROI. This is key to refine and enhance WSV leadership programs and assess participant engagement in these programs. This data could also be married with HR data to assess ROI, especially reductions in HR costs e.g. sickness and absenteeism. This translates to a precise calculation as to how much return programs deliver across a range of indicators. Such an analysis is rare and equally not just imperative to developing great well-being outcomes for employees but commercially very significant.

Our recommendation to WSV is to use this opportunity to develop a cutting-edge diagnostic that provides both a collective and personalised evaluation and developmental feedback for participants. Although we do not want to limit ourselves such a diagnostic could measure employees’ views of the program, their development and goal achievement.

This tool would enable WSV to confidentially assess in real-time, participants views of programs. The benefit of this is programs can be tweaked, built upon, and successes extended, and underperforming areas refined.

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This tool developed and validated for WSV could then be adapted and provided to other Victorian organisations. This provides enormous opportunities to further build good will and positions WSV as a strategic centre of excellence in using data analytics for measuring and boosting well-being. An illustration of this follows:

Illustrative Dashboard

2. Wellbeing Development Opportunities

WSV is committed to best practice approaches by investing in leadership development, not only for traditional performance-related outcomes, but importantly, for the wellbeing of its employees. Given this strong commitment, there is a timely opportunity for WSV to capitalize on this by considering broader implementation and evaluation of positively oriented approaches for enhancing employee wellbeing, using multicomponent programs across the organisation. This strategy would reflect best practice and importantly, align with an integrated approach to workplace mental health and wellbeing.

Positive approaches for developing employee wellbeing build individuals and/or teams’ positive emotions, psychological strengths and personal resources (e.g. resilience). One specific example, with robust empirical evidence and that has been included in the current Leading for Wellbeing coaching program at WSV is psychological capital (PsyCap) training.

A potential future collaboration between WSV and the research team could look to establish the implementation and evaluation of a broader wellbeing strategy. This could involve the research team bringing together and working alongside the various expertise currently engaged with WSV (e.g. FBG, TPW or other providers) to develop and evaluate future wellbeing programs. These could include, team PsyCap training designed to develop team psychological resources for enhanced wellbeing and sense of shared purpose; and authentic leadership programs designed to employees develop a stronger sense of meaning and purpose to their work.

By expanding the implementation and evaluation of these types of programs, that encompass positively-oriented approaches more broadly across WSV will provide for strong wellbeing outcomes and position WSV as an industry leader in this space as this approach reflects best practice for the promotion of workplace wellbeing.

3. Employee involvement and well-being survey

There is a timely opportunity to develop an employee engagement tool that aligns with the WSV strategic vision of building healthy and thriving organisation. The benefit of this approach would be that it helps determine the key areas requiring investment, inform well-being strategy and provide a tool far more focused on WSV needs.

For example, the employee involvement tool could be framed around a number of possible well-validated models. These models could for example include integrated approaches to fostering well-being: measuring how to develop a positive culture, both preventing harm and boosting the positive. The advantage of such an approach is that would be specifically be configured to using engagement to develop a healthy and well-workplace.

This work would help align measurement of key aspects driving well-being, provide a business case as to how to foster well-being and new analysis to illustrate the benefits to other potential organisations in Victoria and nationally.

Program Evaluation

Options for reporting program evaluations at a divisional or organisational level

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4. Pursuing excellence in university/industry research collaboration

An Australian Research Council Linkage Project is a cost effective option for further collaboration between the research partners and WSV. In an Australian Research Council linkage project, WSV determines a key initiative that requires investigation, assigns budgets, engages appropriate OD experts and University partners to evaluate this. The University partners produce a detailed funding submission to seek matching funds from the Federal government (this can effectively add between 50-100% of budget).

CONTACT US

Professor Giles Hirst Inaugural Chair of Leadership, Australian National University

T +61 2 612 57406E giles.hirst@anu.edu.au W www.rsm.anu.edu.au

ANU CRICOS Provider Number 00120C

Professor Angela Martin Principal Consultant, Pracademia Adjunct Professor, Tasmanian School of Business and Economics, University of Tasmania

T +61 (0)409 839 390E angela.martin@utas.edu.au W www.utas.edu.au/work-health-wellbeing

Dr Sarah Dawkins Clinical Psychologist Management Lecturer, School of Business and Economics, University of Tasmania

T +61 3 6226 2829E sarah.dawkins@utas.edu.au W www.utas.edu.au/work-health-wellbeing