Why the answer to workplace wellbeing isn't another wellbeing strategy.
Are you tired? Not burnt out or in crises, just tired.
Tired is a word I hear most often from clients, networks and friends.
We're tired from juggling work, childcare, ageing parents or relatives, household admin, rising costs, managing illness, endless notifications and calendars full of back-to-back meetings, not moving for hours away from our desks or doing physically demanding jobs that measure productivity by the minute. Many of us are doing two jobs: the one we get paid for and the one waiting for us when we close our laptops or get home.
Yet when employers see people struggling, the response is often predictable.
A wellbeing app.
A resilience workshop.
A mindfulness programme.
An Employee Assistance Programme.
These things aren't bad. In fact, I’ve rolled out all of these in previous roles. And I’m not alone - organisations have never invested more in employee wellbeing. Research from Gallup estimates burnout-related turnover and lost productivity cost organisations around $322 billion globally each year, while employee belief that organisations genuinely care about their wellbeing remains worryingly low. Gallup even warns of "carewashing" - organisations investing in visible wellbeing initiatives while failing to address the root causes of employee strain. For example, how to prioritise properly and use methodologies like Agile in solving one problem at a time.
Increasingly, it feels like offering painkillers to someone with a broken leg. I wonder if we've got the diagnosis wrong.
What if employees aren't struggling because they need more wellbeing support?
What if they're struggling because organisational and job design hasn’t kept pace with reality?
Many workplace norms were built for a reality that no longer exists.
A reality where one person went to work and somebody else managed childcare, caring responsibilities and domestic life. Where people had stronger communities or support networks and families tended to live in proximity. Where one salary could help you buy a house and cover bills.
Today, most households don't look like that. Dual-income families are the norm. Many employees are simultaneously caring for children, ageing relatives or both. The economic environment means salaries are increasingly stretched. And research continues to show that women carry a disproportionate share of unpaid caring and domestic responsibilities.
I think of myself – where my family is spread out across the globe, my closest friends don’t live near me, and both my partner and I work full time and juggle constantly. We are the fortunate ones with employers who support flexibility and are empathetic to the demands of life.
One of the best examples I can think of to illustrate the point is school holidays (on average in the UK is 65 days) vs annual leave limits (again in the UK, the average is 33.9 days, with the statutory amount of 28 days including bank holidays). I know so many people who then have to juggle leave, wrap around care and holiday camps to be able to cope with childcare out of term time to accommodate the 30-37 day gap or just deal with the guilt of being a working parent.
And it’s not just our external context that has changed. The pace of work and expectations on us at work have changed too.
I remember a conversation with a previous CEO, who was sharing how they missed the days of the tea and post person – when the pace of work was dictated by postal correspondence not an immediate response in your inbox. For years we've been promised technology would give us time back, now AI may finally have the potential to do exactly that.
According to the Microsoft Work Trend Index, 66% of AI users report spending more time on higher-value work, and many are using AI to support analysis, creativity and problem solving. This is great, but what are we doing with the time we've supposedly saved?
Are we using that time to collaborate, build relationships, think critically or creatively, learn, build innovative connections or ideate? Or are we just filling our time with more tasks?
History suggests productivity gains don't automatically reduce workloads, in fact more often, they raise expectations. Email didn't create more spare time. Neither did smartphones, instead they increased the pace and expectation of work.
And AI won't either unless organisations deliberately redesign work around the capacity it creates. As the latest Microsoft research argues, the opportunity is not simply to adopt AI but to rethink how work itself is designed.
I think we need to ask smarter questions when it comes to designing jobs and work.
Are jobs designed around modern lives – the hours, the commute, financial needs?
Do managers understand sustainable performance?
Do we allow for breaks post busy periods?
When we put our out of office on do we ‘mean’ it?
Are workloads manageable and aligned with priority strategic actions?
Are we measuring outcomes or visibility?
Do we allow team strengths to shape delivery?
Are we using technology to create capacity or simply to increase expectations?
Because when I ask employees how they're doing, I so often hear the same answer.
"Tired."
Not lazy. Not disengaged. Not resistant to change.
Tired.
So perhaps the most important wellbeing intervention organisations can make is not helping people become more resilient to poorly designed jobs and work but designing better work and jobs in the first place.
If you’re interested in doing things differently when it comes to designing work – get in touch we’d love to talk.
Written by Emma Nicholls, Director at the Clear Company