Every October, mental health and workplace wellbeing receive some extra attention. Organisations organise workshops on stress, sleep or resilience. They offer mindfulness, coaching, yoga or healthier options at the office.
Many of these initiatives are valuable. But workplace wellbeing is about much more than the wellbeing programme. What people experience during the rest of their working week matters at least as much.
When workplace wellbeing focuses on the symptoms
When people are stressed, tired or disengaged, the first response is often to consider what support we can offer them. We talk about resilience, stress management or recovery.
But sometimes the work itself needs attention.
A stress workshop can provide useful techniques. It cannot solve a workload that has been unrealistic for months. Sleep training can help someone understand their sleep better, but it will not change consistently unreasonable working hours. Coaching can help someone reflect on what they need, but it cannot create psychological safety in a team where speaking up has consequences.
The support can be valuable. It simply cannot compensate for everything underneath it.
Workplace wellbeing goes beyond wellbeing initiatives
The World Health Organization lists a remarkably broad range of psychosocial risks at work. They include excessive workloads, understaffing, limited control over work, unclear roles, lack of support, problematic organisational cultures, job insecurity and poor opportunities for career development. WHO even explicitly mentions the under-use of someone’s skills.
Very few of these would normally appear in a wellbeing programme.
They are part of the everyday reality of doing a job.
Is the work manageable?
Are expectations clear?
Do people have enough autonomy to do their work properly?
Do they feel safe enough to say when something is not working?
Do they receive support from their manager and colleagues?
And there is another factor: does the job itself still fit?
When a job no longer fits
Someone can have reasonable working hours, a supportive manager and perfectly acceptable working conditions, yet still gradually lose energy in their role.
They may be good at what they do, but spend most of their week doing work that no longer motivates them. They may see little room to grow, or simply have no idea what another internal step could look like.
That does not make every career issue a wellbeing issue.
Workload is still a work organisation issue. Psychological safety is still a leadership and culture issue. Career development is still career development.
But all of these factors influence how people experience their work every day. If we want to talk seriously about workplace wellbeing, they cannot sit outside the conversation.
The iceberg underneath workplace wellbeing
I like to picture workplace wellbeing as an iceberg.
Above the waterline are the things we explicitly label as wellbeing: stress workshops, sleep support, yoga, mindfulness, coaching, wellbeing platforms and perks. They are visible, concrete and easy to communicate.
Below the surface sits a much larger collection of factors employees experience continuously:
- workload and autonomy
- role clarity and expectations
- relationships with managers and colleagues
- psychological safety
- working conditions
- job and culture fit
- opportunities to develop and grow
- perspective on possible next career steps
These factors may not appear on the wellbeing calendar, but they shape a much larger part of someone’s working week.
This is reflected in the World Health Organization’s approach to mental health at work. Its recommendations do not only focus on helping individuals cope. They also include organisational interventions that address working conditions themselves, including workload, schedules, communication and teamwork.
Sometimes, therefore, the most relevant contribution to workplace wellbeing does not look like a wellbeing initiative at all.
Sustainable careers: person, context and time
This broader perspective on work is also one of the reasons why the concept of sustainable careers resonates so strongly with us at myCareerCompanion.
Research by Ans De Vos, Beatrice Van der Heijden and Jos Akkermans describes sustainable careers through the interaction between person, context and time, with health, happiness and productivity as important indicators of sustainability.
A career is not sustainable simply because someone is performing well today. The relationship between a person and their work needs to remain workable as both the person and their environment change over time.
And fit is never static. People change. Their motivations and priorities evolve. Jobs change. Teams and organisations change. A role that was a great fit three years ago can gradually become a very different experience.
Where career development and wellbeing meet
This is where workplace wellbeing connects with what we do at myCareerCompanion.
We are not a wellbeing company, nor do we believe every HR challenge should be relabelled as wellbeing. Our focus is on understanding people and their potential, strengthening career development and career conversations, improving job and culture fit, and helping employees discover where they could grow or move internally.
These are first and foremost talent and career questions.
But they also sit below the waterline.
Understanding what motivates someone, whether their current role fits, whether they feel at home in the organisation and whether they can see a meaningful next step all contribute to making a career sustainable.
Good career and talent practices cannot solve every wellbeing challenge. They can, however, help create some of the conditions on which sustainable workplace wellbeing depends.
Look below the waterline
So when mental health and workplace wellbeing receive extra attention, the wellbeing programme is only one place to look.
Keep the stress workshop if people find it useful. Keep the yoga class. Keep the fruit.
But also look at what happens when everyone returns to their desk afterwards.
Is the work manageable? Do people feel safe enough to speak up when it is not? Does the role still fit the person doing it? Do employees understand what gives them energy and where they could go next? Is there room to change something before leaving the organisation becomes the only obvious way to change their situation?
Those questions are harder to put on a wellbeing calendar. But they are much closer to what employees experience every day.
Workplace wellbeing is bigger than the wellbeing programme.
Most of it sits below the waterline.
How myCareerCompanion supports sustainable careers
Workplace wellbeing starts with creating the right conditions. Career development, job fit and internal mobility can be an important part of those conditions.
myCareerCompanion helps organisations understand their people beyond their current job title and create more sustainable opportunities for growth.
Understand what drives people with CareerCompass
Compass gives employees insight into their competencies, vocational interests, motivational drivers and career preferences. It helps people understand what gives them energy, where their strengths lie and which career directions could suit them.
For HR, these insights provide a stronger foundation for meaningful development and career conversations.
Explore Compass >
Understand job and culture fit
Being capable of doing a job does not necessarily mean that the job remains a good fit.
myCareerCompanion helps organisations better understand the relationship between employees, their roles and their working environment. Insights into job and culture fit can help identify where expectations, motivations or preferences may no longer align.
Explore Job & Culture Fit >
Create perspective through internal mobility
By helping employees discover possible career paths and internal opportunities, myCareerCompanion makes it easier to explore alternatives when a current role no longer fits. This supports career ownership while helping organisations retain and develop talent.
Explore Internal Mobility >