Does Big Data Have a Role to Play in Workplace Well-being?
According to a recent industry survey, 78% of organizations stated they are currently offering mental health support services to their employees. However, only 27% of these organizations knew which services were most utilized and effective, and less than 18% actually measured program success.
Whilst I’m pleased to see the increased awareness and desire to support mental health at work, I am also disheartened by the lack of metrics and insights being used that could help to drive more constructive approaches to workplace well-being.
Using big data in business is now commonplace, helping organizations to better understand their clients, products and competitors, for example. Yet, relatively little emphasis has been placed on using big data to understand workplace behaviors, processes and practices that may lead to high levels of stress and mental ill health.
How might workplace well-being benefit from using big data?
Identifying Trends and Patterns: By using big data to analyze employee feedback, satisfaction surveys, occupational health metrics, and productivity data, employers can uncover insights into what factors may be contributing to workplace well-being or detracting from it.
Customizing Programs: By analyzing data on factors such as work habits, communication patterns, and stress levels, organizations can tailor mental health programs and resources to better meet the unique needs of their employee base.
Measuring Program Impact: By analyzing data before and after the implementation of well-being programs, organizations can assess whether these initiatives are achieving their desired outcomes and make adjustments as needed.
Measuring Return on Investment: By using big data to analyze the utilization and take up rates of well-being programs alongside of their impact, employers can assess cost to benefit ratios and make informed decisions on where best to invest corporate dollars.
Providing Predictive Analytics: By analyzing historical data, organizations can develop predictive models to anticipate when employees may be at risk of burnout, stress, or other well-being concerns. This means that proactive measures can be implemented to address these issues before they escalate further.
Organizations that really understand this data, openly communicate it, and build it into their leadership metrics can greatly increase employee trust and loyalty, attract new talent and stay ahead of regulatory reporting requirements.
According to insights gathered in 2023 by Deloitte and Workplace Intelligence, 85% of executives believed their organizations should have to report workplace well-being metrics and that the evolution of ESG reporting may accelerate this requirement. More than 8 in 10 executives also believed they would need to be more responsible for their employee’s mental well-being over the next few years, with 72% of those surveyed saying that executive compensation should be directly correlated with employee well-being metrics.
But where do you start when it comes to all these metrics?
One effective way to start leveraging big data is by creating an impact assessment of your organizational mental health risks. This provides an opportunity to gather existing data on working conditions, policies and governance, workplace practices and procedures, employee satisfaction, staff turnover, etc., and use them to generate a clearer picture of what might be leading to better, or worse, mental health at work. From this data, a baseline risk profile can be generated and used to design customized mental health programs with your organization’s specific needs in mind.
As my favorite MBA professor always said, “get the data first and let the data tell you where to go next”. A poignant reminder of how we can use metrics to help us make sense of the current well-being landscape and uncover those blind spots that might be leading to mental ill health.
A note of caution of course that, as with any data driven initiative, data privacy and ethical considerations must be prioritized, ensuring any sensitive employee information is handled confidentially, responsibly and in accordance with local regulations. With these safeguards in place, I believe big data can provide valuable insights in which to design, track and measure mental health programs and that, armed with these insights, organizations will have a much better chance at successfully implementing programs that are thoughtful and far more meaningful to their employees.
If you’d like to know more about whether an impact assessment could be a good starting point for your business, please reach out.