Wellbeing

Would someone please slap the person that invented the well-being survey.

No seriously. I mean it. A great big slap, right across the face. Then ask them, “What the fresh hell were you thinking?”

I’m not normally a supporter of violence but if you happen to come across TennantR, FisherL, PlattP, JosephS, WeichS, ParkinsonJ, SeckerJ, Stewart-BrownS then I don’t think you should hold back.

Pick them up by the scruff of the neck and say, “I was perfectly happy at work until some HR twit stumbled across your research and decided that managers should be forced to ask me to complete a questionnaire about stress once a year.”

The last thing anyone who is mostly happy in their job needs is to be forced to think about the things that irritate them. Even worse, to be asked to write them down. 

Humans have a tendency to focus on the negative. This isn’t a bad thing. It keeps us alive. Watch the one tiger, rather than the thousand pretty butterflies. When there aren’t any real tigers we have to train ourselves to see the butterflies. The Well-being survey does the opposite of that.

I can’t imagine what it must be like for managers’ stress levels to read all of those niggles; often things that they are powerless to change, that are also causing them stress.

What do you like about work? - that’s what I would ask. 

I like funny children, making noise that sometimes turns into music, my colleagues, the Friday sit, chatting about how recorders make perfect vomit tubes. I like my music room and going for a walk at lunchtime with a book and if my well-being scores are lower than normal it’s because it’s my birthday coming up and birthdays (specifically my birthday) always makes me grumpy. 

Keep a lookout for the butterflies