Fix your Roof on a Sunny Day: Safeguarding Employee Wellbeing.

1. Fix your Roof on a Sunny Day
2. Staff Wellbeing and The Duty of Care
3. Addressing Wellbeing for Aid Workers
4. Benefits of Safeguarding Employee Wellbeing
5. Our Value Offering

1. Fix your Roof on a Sunny Day: The Case for Staff Wellbeing

John F. Kennedy’s adage, “Fix your roof on a sunny day,” may not have been specifically intended for businesses, but it does apply rather well, especially in terms of employee wellbeing.

Our current era is marked by extraordinary humanitarian crises, including rising natural disasters aggravated by swift climate change, devastating conflicts around the globe, and public health crises that combine both man-made and natural disasters. Additionally, working conditions in humanitarian organizations can change often, for instance as a result of the funding climate or the operating context.

Therefore, due to the nature of their profession and the setting in which they perform it, aid workers (including support employees) are at heightened risk of suffering from negative psychological health effects. When prevention is unsuccessful, it is important to remain calm and come up with a workable plan to minimize any long-term harm to the wellness of everyone involved and get things back on track.

We will examine some practical measures that humanitarian organizations might take to protect the welfare of their personnel.

2. Staff Wellbeing and The Duty of Care

Did you Know: On average individuals spend 90,000 hours of their lifetime at work.

Safeguarding staff wellbeing means not only protecting their physical health but also their mental, emotional, social, occupational, and economic health – all derived from the dimensions of wellbeing.

At KHC, we hold that a wholistic approach to wellbeing has far more greater results than isolated and fragmented efforts. That is why all our interventions address each of these dimensions collectively, with respect to one key aspect – the world of work.

A Gallup study found that occupational wellbeing is the foundation for all the other elements of wellbeing. Why? People want to work! Meaningful work is an important aspect of a fulfilling life. Modern employees expect employers to help them live great lives. Another more recent study from Gallup revealed that Millennials and Gen Z rank workplace wellbeing as their top want in an organization.

Should employers, therefore, be responsible for the wellbeing of their workers? Simply put, on average individuals spend 90,000 hours of their lifetime at work. Businesses and employers have a responsibility to ensure that those hours spent in their environments support the wellbeing of their employees. Creating thriving lives is the right thing to do, and it makes good business sense, too.

At Knightwise Human Capital, we understand what makes millennials and Gen Z tick on matters wellbeing. Through our Short Term (medium impact) and Long Term (high impact) programs, we curate wholistic wellbeing interventions tailor-made to address your unique needs.

3. Addressing Staff Wellbeing for Aid Workers

Humanitarian work can be rewarding – but it can also take a toll on a person’s life balance. Threats on staff mental health may not be as visible of as physical ones, but they are no less damaging. Aid workers are likely to experience increased anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, burnout, compassion fatigue, general distress, hazardous alcohol consumption, subjective health complaints, and even suicidal ideation.

Knightwise Human Capital approaches all its interventions from a data standpoint which equips us to better understand and quantify the extent of the need, monitor and track the interventions implemented as well as measure the success or failure of programs.

Our process entails:

Data

Through acquired experience, KHC understands that every humanitarian organization has its own specific

wellbeing needs that may require bespoke interventions.

Relying on the words of Edward Deming, “Without data, you are just another person with an opinion,” KHC begins all its interventions through the acquisition and analysis of select data. We use these metrics to measure wellbeing across organizations.

The metrics include:

• Employee Engagement and Satisfaction Surveys: Employee Wellness and Job Satisfaction are closely related. Employees use anonymous platforms to provide invaluable feedback.
• Moodometre: Measures how happy or unhappy employees are within the organization and raises alarms for staff with early signs of distress or psychologically ill health, flagging them for individual assistance.
• Productivity Levels: Places the happiness rating against the business success.
• Absenteeism & Turnover Levels: Tracking absenteeism allows the identification of the struggles employees face, and whether an organization has provisions to address them. Turnover levels combined with data from exit interviews allow us to compare with data from previous periods or industry benchmarks.
• EAP Utilization & Uptake: Assesses the effectiveness of internal wellness programs if any and evaluates impact on employees’ lives. Need to conduct any of these assessments? We partner with organizations to conduct ethical, accurate, and valuable research.

Programs & Interventions

From the data we acquire, we design bespoke programs and interventions to address the needs identified. These include:

• Employee Wellness Programs: Wellness Programs are tailored to address wholistic wellbeing needs such as Physical Fitness, Therapy provisions, support programs for Work-Life Balance and Financial Literacy Support.
• Employee Assistance Programs: Assistance Programs are tailored to address precise areas of needs such as PTSD, Crisis Intervention, Addiction Recovery, Debriefing Services amongst others.
• Psychological Assessment Tests: We administer various psychological assessments to determine the extent of Trauma, Depression & Anxiety, and Burnout; after which we make treatment recommendations.
• Leadership Coaching & Psychosocial Support: Tailor-made for senior and middle level executives, this intervention provides psychosocial support to leaders addressing both personal and organizational (people related) concerns.
• Career Transition Support: In the case of redundancy, retrenchment and company downsizing, we step in to ensure staff have a seamless transition, equipped with the necessary information for their next phase of life/career. Conducted through training and debriefings, it provides Psychosocial Support and addresses topics like Career Coaching, Entrepreneurship and Financial Literacy.
• Retained Services: Each intervention is available on a retained basis, to allow high impact and transformation.

Reporting & Follow-Up Services

We take pride in being the experts in Applying Psychology to Workplaces. All our interventions are preceded by Insights Reports that equip leaders to make data-driven people decisions. To ensure that our impact is sustained, we follow up between 2- 4 months post interventions to review wellbeing in the organization.

4. Benefits of Safeguarding Employee Wellbeing

Organizations and leaders that actively create and promote a safe, positive working environment can:

• Improve how reports of trauma, burnout, stress & depression are received and handled throughout your organization.
• Better respond with appropriate treatment for traumas acquired within the field of duty and affecting daily life.
• Support staff through Work-Life balance concerns and better equip them to do their jobs more effectively.
• Better prevent extreme effects of psychosocial torment such as suicide, substance addiction, and mood disorders.
• Better serve the communities your organizations target to assist by providing them with healthy and resilient staff.
• Increase confidence from donors who entrust you with funding to execute programs.
• Cultivate a culture that esteems, protects, and supports staff wellbeing – a people-first approach – improving staff retention and satisfaction.
• Actively create psychologically safe & healthy workspaces; and,
• Reduce the number of financial claims on grounds of mental wellbeing within your organization.

05. Our Value Offering

As our tagline ‘Applying Psychological Principles In Workplaces’ suggests, we take pride in the way we understand people within the context of organizations, and in how we apply tools, techniques, and data to get the best out of them.

We are the best because of our:

▪ A tailor-made approach to addressing staff wellbeing needs with short- & long-term interventions as well as retained services.

▪ Ability to second therapists to the operational sites of the client to address staff wellbeing needs.

▪ Ability to absolve liability of staff wellbeing on behalf of the organizations we serve.

▪ Practical application of the methodology in ways sustainable for an organization after project conclusion.

▪ Culture to handle projects with an Iterative approach addressing emerging issues within the shortest time possible.

▪ Adherence to local and international ethical standards of execution, observing highest levels of empathy, professionalism, and confidentiality.

▪ Ability to incorporate all 8 dimensions of wellbeing into our interventions for longer- lasting impact.

Fixing your roof on a sunny day means that there won’t be an emergency the following time it rains, which is important for the welfare of your personnel. Knightwise is available to assist with all of your organization’s wellbeing concerns. From December 7 to December 9, 2022, in Nairobi, we will be exhibiting at the EAHS Africa conference.

Stop by our booth and interact with us or contact us through www.khcafrica.com or via info@khcafrica.com.

Article References

Morgan, I. (2022) Employees want wellbeing from their job, and they’ll leave to find it,

Gallup.com. Gallup. Available at: https://www.gallup.com/workplace/352952/employees-wellbeing-job-leave-find.aspx.

One third of your life is spent at work (no date) Gettysburg College. Available at: https://

www.gettysburg.edu/news/stories?id=79db7b34-630c-4f49-ad32-4ab9ea48e72b.

Pendell, R. (2022) Employee wellbeing starts at work, Gallup.com. Gallup. Available at:

https://www.gallup.com/workplace/394871/employee-wellbeing-starts-work.aspx.