Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, one topic has been front and center in the minds of many employers — the mental health and wellbeing of employees. Employee wellbeing is key to business performance, and maintaining it needs to be a critical component of company DNA. On this episode of “On Aon,” host Nico Page, Global Program Manager for Aon Business Services, and Aon’s Senior Vice President of Commercial Risk and Health Solutions Stephanie Pronk, delve into Aon’s 2021 Global Wellbeing Survey.
Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, one topic has been front and center in the minds of many employers — the mental health and wellbeing of employees. Employee wellbeing is key to business performance, and maintaining it needs to be a critical component of company DNA. On this episode of “On Aon,” host Nico Page, Global Program Manager for Aon Business Services, and Aon’s Senior Vice President of Commercial Risk and Health Solutions Stephanie Pronk, delve into Aon’s 2021 Global Wellbeing Survey.
Additional Resources:
Aon’s 2021 Global Wellbeing Survey
“The Benefits of Psychological Safety at Work, and How to Foster It”
“Aon: Survey finds direct connection between employee well-being, business performance”
Tweetables:
“If you have leadership support and a strategy in place, it will lead to high wellbeing performance that will lead to business outcomes.” — Stephanie Pronk
“Wellbeing is more than a program. It’s a people and performance strategy.” — Stephanie Pronk
“There are a lot of opportunities here for employers to focus on the healthy living aspect that will keep all of us productive and performing.” — Stephanie Pronk
Voiceover:
Welcome to On Aon, a podcast featuring conversations between colleagues on, well, Aon. This week, we hear from Stephanie Pronk, talking about Aon's 2021 global wellbeing survey. Now, this week's host, Nico Page.
Nico Page:
My name is Nico Page. I've been a colleague at Aon for two and a half years. I've had the pleasure to serve in our Aon businesses organization, as well as our people organization. Today's topic is on a lot of employers' minds lately, especially now that most of us are well over one year into the COVID-19 pandemic. Mental health and wellbeing are top of mind in many HR departments around the world. My guest today, Stephanie Pronk, Senior Vice President Commercial Risk, Health and Affinity, Health Solutions, has extensive experience in the employee wellbeing space.
She was also instrumental in producing Aon's 2021 global wellbeing survey, and has been with the firm for over 10 years now. Thanks for being here today, Stephanie. Before we get into the survey, let's talk about your wellbeing for a minute. Are there things you do during the work day to improve your mental health and stay grounded? How do you get ready for the work day?
Stephanie Pronk:
Well, thanks, Nico. I'm really excited to be here today, and to share my story, and share a lot about what we're doing from a global wellbeing survey standpoint. Well, I really have always been able to be very physically active in terms of I'm a runner. I also enjoy walking. That is really how I start my day. When I get stressed at work, I'll take a break and do a little bit of walking. I think that's made a very big difference for me in my life, and I have been a runner for a very long time. I really enjoy it. But it also really reduces my stress and allows me to sleep better. It prepares me for work every day.
Nico Page:
That's amazing. I can relate. I actually really enjoy running, myself. COVID-19 has been my introduction into running. So much so that I'm actually running the Chicago Marathon this year in October. So, really, really excited for that. We'll have to exchange some notes back and forth, I guess, because running has become a huge passion in my life. With that in mind, I want to transition here to really talk more around employee wellbeing, and what's been happening in terms of the COVID-19 pandemic. I think the COVID-19 pandemic has really underscored the value of mental health. Does employee wellbeing affect company performance?
Stephanie Pronk:
Well, the simple answer is yes. I think that one of the things that we wanted to do with the survey, the global survey that we did, was we really wanted to look at and investigate the relationship between wellbeing and business performance. We also wanted to be able to assess how the culture, environment, the leadership, business goals, and demographics link and influence both wellbeing and company performance. Finally, we wanted to establish global, regional, and country market trends across all wellbeing dimensions.
I think part of when we looked at this survey, to be able to really look at does wellbeing really impact business performance, we had to do some different kinds of statistical analysis to get at that. I want to take just a couple minutes to explain what we did, because I think it's really important, as we believe this finding will propel the industry and start to look at wellbeing in a very different context. When we sent out the survey, we asked companies to identify what metrics they used for all business success. We also asked them what were the business issues that wellbeing most impacted, in their opinion. Then we asked companies to report how they actually measured their wellbeing programs, and how they performed relative to expectations.
We took all of those survey responses, and we ran it through a predictive analytic that our survey partner, Ipsos, a global research firm, actually suggested that we do, because we're using survey research. We found the strength of connections and directionality. So, we really wanted to be able to look at what is working, what's connected, what's linked, what's the impact, and what's the relationship? After running that predictive analytic, we really were able to show that organizations that had achieved their wellbeing measures of success were more likely to achieve success in the areas of customer satisfaction and retention, employee satisfaction, profit, and decreases in turnover.
I mean, who wouldn't want to have that type of success within their organization? We also wanted to look at the direct and indirect connections between having a wellbeing strategy in place and having a successful wellbeing plan, and the impact that it had on business outcomes. There are a couple things that we found in this that I think are really interesting, and I think many of us that have been in the industry for ... Most of all of my career has been in this industry, which is over 30 years. Now, I've really dated myself. But I think what's important is the fact that we've always had some suspicions that having leadership support was really key. Having a strategy, and then having wellbeing initiatives that are focused on that strategy would lead to business outcomes.
What this survey, and the research that we did around the survey responses, actually are showing is that this is really true. If you have leadership support, and you have a strategy in place, that it will lead to high wellbeing performance that will lead to business outcomes. Companies that have only wellbeing initiatives ... So, they have the program of the month, or they have an app, or they have tools. If they didn't have those connected to a strategy, we did not see any connection to business outcomes. So, it just reiterates the fact that you have to look at this as a people and performance strategy in order to see the business outcomes that every business wants to see.
Nico Page:
That's fantastic. I appreciate the holistic view that your organization's driving, and the overall analysis is really, really impressive, as well. Right? Steeping that in a larger vision, I love the people and performance piece. Having an HR background, having some things in [inaudible 00:06:55] psychology, and studying that in school, I can definitely identify with that. I enjoy working with clients, focusing on similar issues. So, glad we're having this conversation today.
You had mentioned the things that, in terms of how organizations are able to tell, or be able to really tangibly see how it affects overall business performance. Can you talk around how it can mitigate some of those issues? What are the steps they can take to make sure that business performance doesn't suffer, there's not loss of clients, et cetera, revenue isn't lost, as well? What are some of the steps that organizations can take to mitigate that?
Stephanie Pronk:
Yeah. Let me start that out by saying I think what's important, besides the theme that we identified in terms of wellbeing performance impacts company performance, there were three other things that came through in this survey, that I think connect exactly to what you're asking. One is company performance is at risk due to stress, burnout, and anxiety. As I mentioned earlier, wellbeing is more than a program. It's a people and performance strategy, and organizations are starting to think about that differently. Finally, I think the last key thing that we discovered in the survey research was that the future of work is going to be very flexible. It's going to have different kind of work styles, and people are going to be very resilient, both as individuals, as leadership, and as an organization.
I think that in order to do that, in order to really start to look at wellbeing as a people and performance approach, we have to start with data. That data and information need to come from a variety of different sources. It needs to come from qualitative and quantitative data. We need to hear from employees. We need to hear from leadership. We need to understand what's happening with costs in the organization, and what's important from a measurement standpoint for an organization as it drives business outcomes. Once we have all that information, and doing a lot of planning around that, doing discovery, understanding what's needed, what they're doing today, what's working, what's not working, when we have all that information, then we can move on to developing a strategy.
Having a strategy that's very focused, and having initiatives and tactics that are very focused on that strategy, become absolutely key as organizations look at having success and having wellbeing impact business outcomes. I think many times today, because of the wellbeing environment that we have, organizations and individuals think, "Well, if we just put in a wellbeing vendor, then we have everything taken care of." I think, as I mentioned earlier, what we found in the survey results is that you really need to have that wellbeing strategy that's connected to leadership, that's connected to performance, and ultimately, outcomes.
Nico Page:
I love that. One thing that really makes me think around some of those answers and responses you're doing is really around colleague engagement, and the fact that Aon's been really progressive in that space in the last year or two. We've pivoted from an annual engagement survey to quarterly surveys. We're reaching different populations, different groups. We're hosting more informal town halls, more focus groups, all of the things you're recommending in terms of getting that more holistic view around how colleagues are feeling, how things are happening in realtime. So, great to hear that.
That brings me to my next point that I really want to hit on here. You touched upon how companies can implement some of these things, and some of the challenges and some other things. In your mind, you mentioned sometimes companies go to vendors first. Sometimes it happens in silos. Can you speak a bit more around how an organization can holistically get the right inputs in place to have a successful wellbeing strategy? What are the pieces that are needed? What is the interaction model? In your mind, can you speak to that, and just expand upon that a bit?
Stephanie Pronk:
Yeah. I think, first and foremost, organizations need to look at this as not just a program, but as a people and performance strategy, which means it needs to be a combined effort and an integrated and interconnected effort within the organization. So, it's not just coming from HR, that it's coming from operations. It's coming from finance. It's coming from the office of the CEO. It is really looking at how you take wellbeing, you work it into the culture of the organization, and the DNA of the organization, so that it becomes part of how people do their work.
One of the interesting things that we had an opportunity to do with a client was to look at, really, finding out how wellbeing works into their day. By doing some different type of survey research, we actually were able to find how people actually worked wellbeing into their day. With that, then it allowed us to understand more in terms of what we could do as an organization to support employees at different aspects of their workday. I think making it something that you have to add onto your work day is hard for people, because people have a lot on their plates. But if you can look at ays to link and integrate into the work that they already do, it makes a huge difference.
Nico Page:
One of the other questions I really wanted to hit on here was the evolution of the workplace. I think as we begin to see vaccines being rolled out more widely, people are taking this adoption, there's this perception, maybe, that folks might be going back to work, or there's an option to go back to work. Can you speak a bit on your thoughts on hybrid work models? Are people going to be going back to the office? What are the right steps organizations can take to make employees feel they have choice and have optionality, as things begin to, hopefully, get back to normal here in the few coming months?
Stephanie Pronk:
Well, I think we learned a lot of things. I think we learned that we don't have to get on an airplane all the time to go visit with clients. I think we learned that we miss one-on-one interaction in terms of live, one-on-one interaction. We all liked video to start with. I think everybody got tired of video after a while. But I think one of the things that we've found is that we can be flexible, and we can be resilient in different situations. I think that's going to be something that's going to be incredibly important to remember moving forward. Businesses who moved all their people to working from home, they had successful years, in the most part. It isn't like you have to be in an office to be successful. I think that's one thing.
I do think people crave the live interaction, and meetings, and getting together. I think that's something that organizations are going to have to keep in mind, that there are going to be people that are going to want to come back and have that interaction. They may not want to be in the office all the time. But they're going to want that interaction on a more regular basis than what we've been able to have over the past 16 months. I do think there's going to be some really important pieces.
I think one of the things that was really apparent with the pandemic, and this started a little bit before the pandemic, employers were really starting to look at the impact of emotional wellbeing and mental health on the workforce. The pandemic just exacerbated the whole issue. But what ended up happening is that, really, employers were thinking about this from a treatment and crisis management standpoint. When the pandemic hit, all of a sudden, this became a bigger, broader issue. It wasn't just about the crisis management and the mental health treatment that needed to go on. It was also about reducing risk and prevention.
Because every single one of us, at some point during the pandemic, really needed emotional or mental health support. So, with that, the industry really stepped up. We saw counseling being done by video, which had never been done before in the US. We saw all sorts of vendors coming up to support resilience, to be able to support just different ways of being able to deal with every day situations that all of a sudden, were becoming major issues for people, because they were isolated at home, or they couldn't go about their normal work days. I think that's one thing that, I think, we will see continued support of that, and the importance of maintaining good emotional wellbeing and mental health.
I think there are three other areas that employers are going to have to really pay attention to. I think one of them is getting people physically active. Interestingly enough, to start with, when the pandemic shut everything down, we saw people had more planned exercise. But what we found was that the daily steps actually decreased significantly. In addition to that, people got to the point where, "Well, I can't do anything, so I'm just going to eat." Then the combination of not eating really healthy also brought in the overweight and obesity issue. We talk about the pandemic 20. We started out with pandemic 15, and then we went to 20, and now we're at 30.
There's a lot of opportunity here for employers to focus on the healthy living aspects that will keep all of us productive and performing, both in our personal life, as well as in our professional life. So, I think those are the kinds of things that employers are really going to have to pay attention to. But I think the social interaction piece, and making sure that people feel supported, that there are others there to support them, become really, really important as we move forward.
Nico Page:
Agreed. Excellent points made all around. I mean, I think even this podcast, this conversation, is a great example of feeling that emotional support, us connecting, having a real conversation, being able to dive into things. I've really appreciated this conversation, as you can, so far. Even this feels nice to do. I think the other point I'd say, beyond that, is that it's unfortunate that the COVID-19 pandemic has unfolded as it has, but it's put some issues to the forefront of all employers' mind around letting people come to work, and fully being themselves, and supporting that.
I think there's possibly been slivers of good here and there, where people are now being able to really make sure that they're feeling as though they're the best they can be and they come to work each day, that they're supported, they're seen, that they're having meaningful connection. I look forward to this topic remaining a mainstay, and a lot of folks, as people, and performances, and strategies going forward. I really just want to say I really appreciate this conversation. Before you go, I'd like to ask you two questions, if that's all right with you.
Stephanie Pronk:
Of course!
Nico Page:
The first one being what was your greatest challenge professionally, and how did you overcome it?
Stephanie Pronk:
So, I think I chose this field, or this field chose me. I have spent my entire career focusing on population health improvement, whether that was in an academic environment, whether it was in an employer environment, in a vendor or a carrier situation, and then in consulting. I think it was looked at for so long as a soft and fluffy thing, that it wasn't really tied to any kind of business acumen, or business performance. There were always a lot of barriers that came up in that. But I believed in it. I believed that there was a connection. I believed that I could make a difference in organizations, and with individuals, and that passion kept driving me to get through all the different barriers.
There were probably many times that normal people would have given up and said, "Ah, I'm not going to take that on. I'm not going to try to fight that fight." But I just always had such a passion for it that I wanted to get through the barriers. I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to change things. That's exactly what we've done with this survey. The questions that we asked, the statistical analysis that we used, actually will give people really good data and information to be able to make the case that wellbeing is very important to business performance.
Nico Page:
Wonderful. That's a great answer. I really can tell your passion for this phase. It's been emanating this whole conversation. You sum it up really well by saying what you just shared right there. The last question I wanted to touch on before you go, it's something, maybe, a bit lighter, what's your favorite thing to do when you're not working?
Stephanie Pronk:
Oh, boy. This is going to surprise a lot of people out there, especially those that know me, and know that I'm a city girl. We have a farm in upper-central Wisconsin. I love being a farm girl. We have 80 acres. 25 of it is tillable land that we don't till, but our neighbor does. But we've got the tractors. We've got all the equipment that we need to be "farmers." But it's the physical, being outside, and the physical piece. Because what I do every day is sit, and look at screens, and do computer work, or be on an airplane when I was on an airplane. It just gives me a new opportunity to get outside with nature, and to do things that are more physically oriented than what I normally do in my work day.
I absolutely love that. We do not have animals. We do have three dogs, just little, tiny dogs, that sometimes like to be heard. So, I think we'll see over time when I retire, down the road, if we actually have some animals at the farm. But right now, we just keep dogs.
Nico Page:
That's wonderful. That's amazing. Someone in my family actually has a farm, as well. So, I'll go out there and enjoy it, and enjoy the animals. I, myself, stick to the cats and the dogs. There's chickens and other animals, and horses, and I'm very nice to animals. But I tend to stick to the domesticated ones, and enjoy what I can enjoy. So, I can definitely appreciate your love for the outdoors and all that, something that I share, as well.
Voiceover:
This has been a conversation On Aon, and our 2021 global wellbeing survey. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this week's episode, tune in in two weeks for a discussion of Aon's collaboration with the public sector. To learn more about Aon, its colleagues, solutions, and news, check out our show notes and visit our website at aon.com.
Stephanie Pronk:
Good luck in the marathon. I haven't done a marathon in 35 years. The last marathon I did, I was six weeks pregnant with my daughter.
Nico Page:
Wow. That's amazing. That's amazing.
Stephanie Pronk:
She never liked to run. She always tells everybody she ran a marathon. There we go.
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