Situación Actual de las Empresas y los EmprendedoresSituación Actual de las Empresas y los Emprendedores

Stories from the Hearth

Hearth Summit BOGOTÁ Session Featuring:

Juan Pablo López Gross

Innovation Senior Specialist, Inter-American Development Bank BID Lab
🌍 Washington, D.C., USA

Romina Mendoza

Senior Specialist, McKinsey and Co.
🌍 San José, Costa Rica

Ricardo Paz

People and Culture Elder, The Wellbeing Project
🌍 Bogotá, Colombia

In Bogotá, Juan Pablo López Gross from the Interamerican Development Bank Lab (BID Lab) presented the findings of new research conducted with The Wellbeing Project on the mental health of high-impact social entrepreneurs in Latin America, ultimately sharing the business case for wellbeing: if the entrepreneurs are doing well, the ventures will do better. Ricardo Paz from The Wellbeing Project provided additional insights from research from the social sector on how organizational wellbeing inspires welldoing. Romina Mendoza shared analysis on organizational wellbeing, employee work-life balance, and mental health from McKinsey & Co’s global study. Watch the session (in Spanish).

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Cómo el Bienestar Organizacional Inspira el Desempeño: Lecciones del Sector de Cambio Social Cómo el Bienestar Organizacional Inspira el Desempeño: Lecciones del Sector de Cambio Social

Stories from the Hearth

Publicación invitada de:

Ricardo Paz

People & Culture Elder, The Wellbeing Project
🌍 Bogotá, Colombia

Lectura rápida

  • The Wellbeing Project, junto con ocho organizaciones de todo el mundo, el Instituto Tavistock y el Center for Healthy Minds estuvieron cinco años investigando el valor del bienestar organizacional y cómo fomentarlo.

  • Aprendieron que cualquier organización, pública o privada, puede beneficiarse de promover el bienestar organizacional: mejora el desempeño de los empleados, lo que se traduce en un mejor desempeño organizacional.

  • Además, todos estuvieron de acuerdo en que era menos costoso invertir en el bienestar organizacional que no hacerlo.

  • Cultivar el bienestar organizacional es un proceso continuo, dinámico y de largo plazo, pero el valor agregado para los empleados, su organización y su comunidad vale la pena.

Ricardo (izquierda) habla en Hearth Summit Bogotá, compartiendo los hallazgos del Programa Exploratorio Organizacional (OEP) de The Wellbeing Project.

En mayo, tuve el placer de presentar en el Hearth Summit Bogotá, que se centró en el bienestar y los negocios sostenibles. En este evento, la sostenibilidad se exploró de tres maneras: 

Trabajo sostenible: centrado en el bienestar de los empleados y el balance vida-trabajo

Negocio sostenible: centrado en la producción y el consumo sostenibles dentro de las empresas

Ecosistemas sostenibles: centrándose en cómo las empresas pueden tener impactos sociales y medioambientales positivos

La audiencia estaba formada por cientos de líderes del sector empresarial: directores ejecutivos, gerentes, expertos y otros se unieron en el Hearth Summit para tomar medidas colectivas y cambiar la cultura corporativa hacia una de bienestar y desempeño.

Me sentí agradecido de compartir los aprendizajes del sector social sobre cómo al promover el bienestar dentro de las organizaciones se conduce a un mayor desempeño.

No soy el único que piensa en la importancia del bienestar de los empleados: la Organización Mundial de la Salud ha clasificado el burnout como un problema de salud ocupacional dada la magnitud de casos presentados. Múltiples estudios en todo el mundo muestran un aumento del burnout en organizaciones de todo tipo. Gallup ha estimado las pérdidas globales por ausentismo, rotación y agotamiento en 322.000 millones de dólares. ¡Mil millones!

La situación es clara: las organizaciones deben centrar su atención en el bienestar de sus empleados. Pero ¿cómo pueden hacer esto?

En el Hearth Summit Bogotá, compartí los aprendizajes de un Programa Exploratorio Organizacional (OEP, por sus siglas en inglés) de cinco años que The Wellbeing Project cocreó con ocho organizaciones de todo el mundo: de Brasil, Canadá, China, Egipto, Mozambique, Pakistán, Senegal y Estados Unidos.

Con el Instituto Tavistock de Relaciones Humanas y el Centro para Mentes Saludables proporcionando apoyo en investigación y metodología, buscamos trabajar con estas ocho organizaciones para desarrollar un marco efectivo para apoyar el bienestar organizacional de manera participativa, basado en evidencia empírica.

Los aprendizajes de estas ocho organizaciones sociales pueden ser útiles para organizaciones de otros sectores, tanto públicos como privados, ya que comparten un mensaje común: el bienestar de los empleados de cualquier organización lleva a un mejor desempeño y, por lo tanto, a un mejor desempeño de las organizaciones y del ecosistema que las rodea. En resumen: el bienestar inspira el desempeño.

Pero ¿cómo pueden las organizaciones crear una cultura de bienestar? Compartí tres aprendizajes clave de OEP con agentes de cambio en Bogotá:

1. Crea tu propia definición y visión de bienestar.

La definición de bienestar organizacional puede ser muy diferente para una organización que para otra, así como a nivel individual. Por esta razón, es relevante hacer una definición de manera participativa con todos o la mayoría de los involucrados. Esto significa que será un proceso lento, de largo plazo, con una visión estratégica, de acuerdo con los retos, objetivos y entorno de cada organización.

2. Dar pequeños pasos, llegarás lejos.

De esta forma, es necesario centrarse en unas primeras y pequeñas acciones para avanzar poco a poco en un plan de trabajo que evidencie avances y refuerce la evolución de la organización. La idea es que, a la hora de tomar decisiones estratégicas, se tengan en cuenta las necesidades de las personas involucradas en todos los niveles de la organización.

3. Encuentra el “camino del medio”.

A veces, una organización se centra únicamente en lograr su misión y objetivos. En el otro extremo, existe la posibilidad de estar demasiado centrado en el bienestar de las personas. Las organizaciones que están muy enfocadas en su misión a menudo tienen una alta rotación de personal, bajos niveles de compromiso, hipersensibilidad a la desadaptación organizacional y una alta frecuencia de casos con burnout. En el otro extremo, en aquellos demasiado enfocados en el bienestar de las personas, hay dificultad para lograr la misión de la organización, las necesidades individuales están constantemente insatisfechas, sus responsabilidades no están claras y su energía se consume en tareas innecesarias.

Una tercera vía, una vía intermedia, se compone de un entorno en el que las personas están inspiradas por la misión y la estructura de la organización, se identifican claramente sus habilidades y competencias individuales, se tienen claras las responsabilidades de sus funciones y se les reconoce por sus contribuciones profesionales.

La conclusión

A través de la investigación de OEP, aprendimos que generar la capacidad de bienestar organizacional es un proceso de gestión del cambio de cuatro pasos:

Definición de objetivos,

Cocreándolos con todos los miembros,

Implementación, y

Aprendizaje constante.

Es un proceso lento, sin soluciones rápidas ni un enfoque lineal. Lo más importante es la dirección de los cambios más que los resultados inmediatos. Es importante que los líderes den el ejemplo también, y vimos tres factores fundamentales en la generación de esta capacidad de bienestar organizacional: Liderazgo, Comunicación y Mentalidad de Crecimiento.

¿Y la última pieza del rompecabezas? Estas ocho organizaciones sociales descubrieron que desarrollar su capacidad de bienestar organizacional era menos costoso que no hacerlo. 

Como dijo uno de los participantes del Programa de Desarrollo Interior de The Wellbeing Project: “Si no tienes bienestar en tu personal, ¿cómo puedes proporcionar bienestar en tu comunidad? Nadie puede dar lo que no tiene”.

Lo mismo ocurre con su organización. Ya sea que trabajes en una organización sin fines de lucro, una empresa o cualquier otro tipo de organización, el mensaje puede ser el mismo:

El bienestar inspira el desempeño: si estamos bien, lo haremos mejor.

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How Organizational Wellbeing Inspires Welldoing: Lessons From the Social Change Sector How Organizational Wellbeing Inspires Welldoing: Lessons From the Social Change Sector

Stories from the Hearth

Guest post by:

Ricardo Paz

People & Culture Elder, The Wellbeing Project
🌍 Bogotá, Colombia

Quick Reads

  • The Wellbeing Project, along with eight organizations from around the world, the Tavistock Institute, and the Center for Healthy Minds spent five years researching the value of organizational wellbeing and how to foster it.
  • They learned that any organization, public or private, can benefit from promoting organizational wellbeing: it improves employee performance, which translates into improved organizational performance.
  • They also all agreed the approach was cost-beneficial: it was less expensive to invest in organizational wellbeing than otherwise.
  • Cultivating organizational wellbeing is an ongoing, dynamic, and long-term process — but the value added for employees, your organization, and your community are worth it.

Ricardo (left) speaks at Hearth Summit Bogotá, sharing findings from The Wellbeing Project’s Organizational Exploratory Program (OEP).

In May, I had the pleasure of speaking at the Hearth Summit Bogotá, which focused on wellbeing and sustainable business. At this summit, sustainability was explored in three ways: 

Sustainable work: focusing on employee wellbeing and work-life balance

Sustainable business: focusing on sustainable production and consumption within businesses

Sustainable ecosystems: focusing on how businesses can have positive social and environmental impacts

The audience was filled with hundreds of leaders from the business sector: CEOs, managers, experts, and others joined together at the Hearth to take collective action and shift corporate culture towards one of wellbeing and welldoing.

I was grateful to share learnings from the social sector about how promoting wellbeing within organizations leads to greater welldoing.

I’m not the only one thinking about the importance of employee wellbeing: the World Health Organization has classified Extreme Burnout as an occupational health problem given the magnitude of cases presented. Multiple studies around the world show an increase in extreme burnout in organizations of all kinds. Gallup has estimated global losses from absenteeism, turnover, and burnout at $322 billion. Billion!

The situation is clear: organizations must turn their attention to the wellbeing of their employees. But how can they do this?

At Hearth Summit Bogotá, I shared learnings from a five-year Organizational Exploratory Program (OEP) that The Wellbeing Project co-created with eight organizations from around the world – from Brazil, Canada, China, Eygpt, Mozambique, Pakistan, Senegal, and the United States.

With the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations and the Center for Healthy Minds providing research and methodology support, we sought to work with these eight organizations to develop an effective framework to support organizational wellbeing in a participatory way, based on empirical evidence.

The learnings from these eight social organizations can be useful for organizations in other sectors, both public and private, as they share a common message: the wellbeing of the employees of any organization leads to their improved performance and, therefore, the improved performance of the organizations and the ecosystem that surrounds them. In short: wellbeing inspires welldoing.

But how can organizations create a culture of wellbeing? I shared three key learnings from OEP with changemakers in Bogota:

1. Create your own definition and vision of wellbeing.

Defining organizational wellbeing can be very different for one organization than for another, as well as at the individual level. For this reason, it is relevant to make a definition in a participatory way with all or most of those involved. This means it will be a slow, long-term process, with a long-term strategic vision, according to the challenges, objectives and environment of each organization.

2. Take small steps – they go far.

In this way, it is necessary to focus on a few first and small actions to advance little by little in a work plan that evidences progress and reinforces the evolution of the organization. The idea is that, when making strategic decisions, the needs of the people involved at all levels in the organization are considered.

3. Find the “middle way”.

Sometimes, an organization is focused solely on achieving its mission and goals. At the other extreme, there is the possibility of being too focused on people’s well-being. Organizations that are very focused on their mission often have high staff turnover, low levels of commitment, hypersensitivity to organizational maladjustment, and a high frequency of cases with extreme burnout. At the other extreme, in those too focused on people’s wellbeing, there is difficulty in achieving the organization’s mission, individual needs are constantly unsatisfied, their responsibilities are unclear and their energy is consumed in unnecessary tasks.

A third way, a middle way, is made up of an environment where people are guided by the mission and structure of the organization, their individual skills and competencies are clearly identified, the responsibilities of their roles are clear, and they are recognized for their professional contributions.

The Bottom Line

Through the OEP research, we learned that generating organizational wellbeing capacity is a four-step change management process: 

Defining objectives,

Co-creating them with all members,

Implementing, and

And constantly learning.

It is a slow process, without quick solutions or a linear approach. What is most important is the direction of changes rather than the immediate results. Leadership by example is also important, and we saw three fundamental factors in generating organizational wellbeing capacity: Leadership, Communication and Growth Mindset. 

And the final piece of the puzzle? These eight social organizations found that developing their wellbeing capacity was less expensive than not doing so. 

As one of the participants of The Wellbeing Project’s Inner Development Program said, “If you don’t have wellbeing in your staff, how can you provide wellbeing in your community? No one can give what they don’t have.”

The same is true for your organization. Whether you work in a non-profit, a business, or any other type of organization, the message can be the same:

Wellbeing Inspires Welldoing: if we are well, we’ll do it better.

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Success Story: Theory of Change. The journey towards wellbeing Success Story: Theory of Change. The journey towards wellbeing

Guest post in collaboration with:

Muhammad Imran Kazmi, Senior Finance Manager in Khwendo Kor

Muhammad Imran Kazmi is the Senior Finance Manager in Khwendo Kor (KK), a well reputed local-based non-for-profit organisation in Peshawar, Pakistan. In 2019 KK was one of 8 social change organisations chosen to participate in  The Wellbeing Project’s Organisational Exploratory Program (OEP). The purpose of the OEP was  to support the organisations through a learning journey to build wellbeing into the heart of their cultures.

Consistent with its vision to build a society where women and girls live with dignity and self-reliance, organisational wellbeing within Khwendo Kor would be defined by a participatory culture and supportive community giving opportunities for every staff member to learn and grow.

Whenever there is change, there will be some resistance to that change: it is a normal human response to uncertainty. Imran explains his own resistance: “At first, I could not accept the idea of wellbeing in the context of Pakistan, where we have such challenges with education, with electricity, with so much. And I did not like the idea of sharing my learning with staff, with connecting with more people.”   

He goes on to say: “I have a stammer tongue by birth and before joining the wellbeing project I was not accepting this problem. All the time I was crucially blaming myself and complaining to GOD for this given. It was always a big challenge for me to accept when I was given a chance to speak in a meeting or a public gathering. Only the thought of it brought always fear in my mind that if I stammer, I would be embarrassed and thus lose self-confidence.”

The OEP was, from the beginning, framed as a learning journey. Everyone came to understand that there were no one-size-fits-all answers. This was an exploration by the participating organisations to define what organisational wellbeing meant to them and identify how they might work to improve it. Learning would come whether the impact was as expected, or not. And learning would be shared among the 8 organisations.

Imran says: “Since I joined OEP in 2019 I had several check-in sessions with our organisational coach. I have a learning attitude, so I have positively learnt a lot from this journey. Since joining the OEP, I slowly and gradually started accepting it.”

“I worked on myself and learned through various session. I did research in internet to found ways to address my stammering and YouTube videos to learn on how to overcome stammering. Once I started accepting my stammer problem, it really worked out and now I don’t feel shame if stammer. This has really built my self-confidence and now sometimes when I speak, I don’t even stammer anymore. For this I feel very grateful first to myself because I’ve learned to change and to The Wellbeing Project /OEP team and Khwendo Kor (KK) for providing me with this beautiful platform not only for organisational wellbeing but also for my personal wellbeing.

Based on my experience I developed some powerful wellbeing indicators which has not only bought miracle change in my life but also a positive attitude. I recommend everyone to apply these in their life.

Regular practice meditation.

Acceptance.

Believe in yourself.

Expressing gratitude.

Calm and peace to have healthy mind.

Be happy and stay positive.

Exposure to nature.

Focus on yourself.

Be aware of the present moment.

Don’t think about your past and future that has yet to come.

Let the ego go.

Having said that, one indicator ACCEPTANCE from the above list has changed my life.

Last year, in 2022, one of our senior Board of Director Dr. Salma Masood Khan and myself have attended The Wellbeing Summit for Social Change in Bilbao, Spain. There we learnt from different sessions and met with beautiful souls across the world. This was an extraordinary experience for me as it was my first ever experience to travel abroad in an airplane. This international exposure was also an additional booster for me to learn and share mutual experiences. Upon our return, we have prepared a PowerPoint presentation and successfully conducted a one-day session on wellbeing to all our staff.”

As for powerful organisational wellbeing indicators, KK is currently heading into its mid-term Strategic Planning Review Process with organisational wellbeing top of mind. Initially Imran was primarily responsible for the KK wellbeing work. Now the KK Human Resource function is taking the lead -reviewing policies through the lens and perspective of wellbeing, looking at salaries, providing interest-free loans to staff, and offering retirement benefits to which the organisation and the staff members contribute.

Imran offers his own powerful wellbeing guidance. “Last but not least my humble submission is: Love yourself, care yourself so that you are able to love and care others as well”.   

ORGANISATIONAL EXPLORATORY PROGRAM (OEP) GROUP MEMBERS ORGANISATIONAL EXPLORATORY PROGRAM (OEP) GROUP MEMBERS

The OEP (Organisational Exploratory Program) is an initiative of The Wellbeing Project. The OEP hosts global mission-driven organisations experimenting with, and integrating wellbeing on multiple organisational levels.
In its third year, these diverse organisations are demonstrating, through modeling and prioritising wellbeing, that social change can happen in a more sustainable and healthy way, and are contributing to a wider shift in their ecosystems.