Enacting digital wellbeing in an organisation

Let's have a look at a case study of an organisation who rolled out a digital wellbeing programme. A large Irish consumer product company. After the various lockdowns 2020-2022, their staff were struggling with blurred boundaries and poll surveys identified an issue with their inability to disconnect or switch off from work out of office hours. They identified that this was impacting wellbeing in that the 'always-on' culture was impacting their ability to rest and recharge. Then as a result, their performance was also impacted. Awareness being the first component of behaviour change. In the case of this organisation, they ran a company-wide keynote talking about the key subjects, i.e., awareness and friction. For many of us, we're so busy on our daily lives that until we actually review our behaviours, it's hard to realise that our focus or our wellbeing is in decline due to drivers such as task-switching.

Once the organisation had run the keynote, a senior leader identified it as a key challenge. They then took a personal role as sponsor of the challenge based on a number of drivers. Number 1, they could see core issues in their own use of tech. Number 2, they could see issues in their staff and teams' use of tech. Number 3, and probably the most important, they could see issues in how their children use tech and so potential future generations working in their organisation.

Having a senior leader get involved was crucial to gain buy-in, that this was a strategic project, and so they could then lead by example and culture change is easier. We have to remember that digital tech is systemic so we need to have leaders with positive digital habits or else, positive change can't be supported. For example, if the team is introducing a guideline to ensure that emails out of office hours are the exception rather than the norm, but the leader is still emailing everyone about the routine tasks every Saturday night, then there's a problem. In the case of disorganisation, the leader led by example and it was a huge help.