New RAND Europe Study Finds Hybrid Workplace Habits Associated with Mental Wellbeing and Job Performance

In collaboration with Vitality, analysis found that behaviours like working outside of “normal” business hours are associated with employee engagement and burnout

A new study has identified the connections between working habits, mental wellbeing and performance and found a wide variety of work experiences to be associated with mental wellbeing and performance outcomes, mediated by factors such as seniority and job type. For example, the mental wellbeing consequences of workplace habits vary as more junior staff are affected by poor-quality meetings filled with multitasking, whereas managers tend to be weighed down by after-hours collaboration and higher rates of workplace connectivity.

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These are among the findings of research conducted by RAND Europe in collaboration with Vitality to understand the relationship between modern workplace telemetry – the responsible and automated collection of transmission data for digital channels such as emails, calendars, instant messages, and online meetings – and employee health, wellbeing, and performance.

The multi-month analysis was conducted with 1,023 UK-based employees of Vitality, a global health and wellbeing company. Cambridge University approved the study methodology to ensure data privacy and that the research matched data generated by the use of Microsoft services captured in Viva Insights to self-reported survey responses and other HR administrative data (such as performance-related pay). The breadth of data allowed for novel insight into health and work issues, highlighting the relationships between how people work and their wellbeing, thereby facilitating the construction of a unique mental wellbeing score linked to measured workplace behaviours.

“The behaviours that define the way in which people work can have differing impacts on wellbeing depending on aspects such as job type and seniority,” said William Philips, Senior Analyst, for RAND Europe, and a study author. “This would imply that tailored interventions to suit different workers can improve their mental health and work outcomes.”

Findings include:

• Employee workplace behaviours are associated with wellbeing and can positively or negatively impact work outcomes/performance.
• There is no one-size-fits-all approach as employees have unique personal and job characteristics, attitudes to work, etc. that must be considered when designing robust wellness interventions.
• By changing work behaviours, we can improve people’s (work) outcomes, with holistic mental wellbeing – job and life satisfaction, overall mental health, burnout, anxiety, and work-life balance – acting as the key mediating factors.

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The expansion of the hybrid work world has altered how people collaborate. Water cooler conversations have been replaced with digital communications. This creates immense potential but also the possibility of employees being exhausted by a deluge of digital communications. With the appropriate governance, workplace telemetry allows understanding network strength and collaboration patterns and their rich – and personal – connections to improve health and outcomes.

“This research is foundational in establishing the relationships between workplace habits, health, mental wellbeing, and workplace performance,” said Daniel Kotzen, Director, Product Research and Innovation at Vitality and a study author. “However, insights necessitate action, and – as the study highlights – tailored interventions must be developed and tested in organizations to ensure that employees thrive.”

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