An insightful blog written by VSLS Head of Strategy, Barry Vorster, intimated that managing performance should have less to do with measuring it on a rating scale, but rather pivoting towards recognising our people to enhance performance. By shifting to recognition and development, rather than rating your people to drive performance, you are making a direct contribution to the engagement and resilience of your workforce.

There is a significant difference between satisfied employees and engaged employees. Steve Jobs said: “The only way to do great work is to love what you do” Many organisations see job satisfaction and employee engagement as the same thing. It’s not – Satisfaction indicates how happy employees are at work but does not automatically correlate to performance. Satisfied employees could potentially be unproductive and may not contribute to the purpose or goal of the organisation. Employee engagement is an emotional connection between the organisation, its purpose and that of the employee.

In our organisation, we have noticed that team members who are proud of the work they deliver tend to be immensely disappointed if they deliver anything that is less than incredible (getting that A+). That’s how we experience engagement!

Engagement and wellbeing programmes are by no means new concepts in organisations. They do, however, have a direct impact on resilience and performance. The question remains: how serious are we about it – or is it still seen as “fluff?” Focusing on wellbeing is often misperceived as an exercise regime, a massage or “feel goods”.  Ongoing behavioural data analysis by Neurozone ® indicates that since the Covid pandemic, exercise took the top two spots out of 65 different scientifically validated predictors for resilience.

Our primal instinct is driving the behaviour to do something active when we are threatened on a physical level. Our mind’s main objective is to keep us alive and not necessarily thrive, and we unconsciously tap into the brain’s Survival Operating System (SOS). Often, we lean on wellbeing reactively as a band-aid to the wound, rather than a preventative measure to combat burnout and illness.

Physical exercise is only one of the building blocks of holistic wellbeing. We also need to proactively support our people on an emotional, mental, and spiritual (belief systems) level. If we apply a holistic wellbeing approach, we can move into an optimal performance zone where we feel inspired, creative and innovative. Innovation and creativity make us as humans vital in business in comparison to machines.

So, if you were still under the impression that wellbeing is just a nice-to-have, think again. It is a fundamental cornerstone in achieving individual relevance, your organisation’s purpose and performance goals.

Wellbeing   →   Engagement = Creativity + Innovation + Aspiration (the parts machines do not have) = Purpose & Sustainability

About the Author

Nadia Leonard is a seasoned management consultant with extensive local and international experience in product architecture & solution design in the digital transformation space. She is the Chief Operations Officer and leads the VSLS Learning Solutions and Workforce Transformation teams that specialise in learning advisory, content experience design and technology implementations.