VIDEOCAST: A Formula for Happiness – How to Find Out What Employees Need?

What is well-being? What impact do external factors have on our sense of satisfaction with life?

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What is well-being? What impact do external factors have on our sense of satisfaction with life? Can happiness be measured? Natalia Hatalska, CEO and founder of infuture.institute, answers these and many other questions in the next episode of the “Wellbeing Summit” videocast series.

A society in crisis of well-being

‘Polycrisis’ is the term used by Natalia Hatalska to describe the situation in the world after the COVID-19 pandemic. Crises of various kinds, such as the war in Ukraine and climate change, overlap and compound each other. This adversely affects the public’s sense of security. This is evidenced, among other things, by large-scale studies of literary texts conducted in terms of the vocabulary that appears in them.

“It turned out that these are words associated with a huge level of fear and anxiety,” says Natalia Hatalska. “And in fact, the number of these words today is greater than in literary texts published after World War I and World War II. For us, as a society, anxiety is a constant. And this obviously influences our daily functioning,” she adds.

The head of infuture.institute stresses that since we are not able to address global crises, it becomes important to develop awareness of our own and others’ well-being. Against this backdrop, a considerable role is played by companies and other organisations that can influence their employees’ sense of happiness.

An unhappy worker is an inefficient worker

After the COVID-19 pandemic, it is clear that a person’s private life and work life are areas that cannot be separated. For this reason, managers and leaders should be able to take care of their employees’ needs not only in the workplace, but also outside of it.

“The mental state and sense of well-being of employees directly affects the functioning of the organisation,” Natalia Hatalska explains. “People who feel bad are unable to work well, are more likely to be on sick leave and experience burnout (...). This entails real costs for the employer,” she points out.

How to measure well-being?

A key issue in taking care of well-being is to determine in advance what it actually means for a given person. Natalia Hatalska defines well-being as inner peace. At the same time, she points out that while the definition may be simple, well-being itself is a more complex issue. And that is because there is no single indicator of well-being that can be applied to all people.

“The sense of well-being is individual in nature. At the same time, it consists of many elements. It is not possible, for example, to assume in advance that a person who is ill has a poor sense of well-being. We know that this is not always the case. There are people who are chronically ill and yet full of life,” she stresses.

Developed by Natalia Hatalska and infuture.institute in cooperation with Benefit Systems, the well-being index consists of six elements, describing a person’s external and internal world. With their help, it is possible to measure the level of well-being in a particular person.

Knowing what is important to a particular employee, employers and leaders can offer a form of support that makes a real difference in the employee’s sense of well-being. In this context, Hatalska mentions medical care, which is a standard benefit in many companies. However, for those who do not use medical care or for whom health is not a key issue, the availability of a medical package will not improve their well-being.

Where to start in taking care of your team’s well-being?

According to a survey conducted by infuture.institute, about 12% of Poles have never experienced well-being in their lives. In contrast, nearly a third of respondents said they felt a constant sense of well-being. Importantly, such answer was least frequently given by those whom Natalia Hatalska describes as the ‘sandwich generation’.

They are middle-aged people who most often have young children and aging parents, and are also often team leaders at work. Combined with other obligations, such as mortgages, this situation can place a huge psychological burden on them.

In order to be able to take care of the needs of others – children, parents or the team – one must recognise their own needs and take care of them accordingly. At the same time, Natalia Hatalska notes that this is quite a problem for leaders, whose well-being is discussed less often than that of employees.