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The subject of employee well-being has been high on the agenda in recent months, and it’s certainly something that can have a big impact on employee and team performance.

A survey by the British Chambers of Commerce recently found that almost half of businesses responding (43%) have had employees absent from work for more than four weeks due to ill health in the last two years.

This impacts on operations and staff morale – 76% of respondents said absences have an overriding impact on staff morale.

A majority of the businesses surveyed recognised the importance of supporting employee health and well-being and the government is currently consulting on proposals to prevent health-related job loss.

While this is a large and complex issue, and ill health can’t always be avoided of course, there are steps businesses can take to help improve the well-being of their workers.

ActionCOACH has a number of tools we use with firms which are designed to improve the workplace culture and environment – which can also impact on the well-being of staff members.

One of those is WIFLE. While its main aim is to help you build a championship team, the principles contained within WIFLE are also a great part of the process of creating a healthy working environment.

So what is a WIFLE?

WIFLE stands for ‘What I Feel Like Expressing’ and is designed to enable team members to express what is going on in their lives, both at work and at home.

While it is often assumed that people leave their emotions at the door, this can be easier said than done. Yet having colleagues understand a bigger picture can help relieve any pressure to do well at work while hiding a major personal problem.

Unexpressed or bottled up emotion can quickly have a big impact on team performance, especially if one member is struggling without others understanding why. The same is true if you’re bottling up an issue at work that could perhaps be easily resolved by talking it through.

WIFLE provides an open forum for airing anything which you feel needs airing, and the results can be incredibly cleansing and refreshing.

To be effective, WIFLE needs to become a regular item on your work agenda, to be held at least once a week, so people know they always have that diarised opportunity to raise issues.

You could even have one at the start of the week to set the agenda and goals, and another at the end to review.

How does a WIFLE work?

The rules for WIFLE are as follows:

  • Sit in a circle
  • Starting with the person next to you, ask whomever ‘what do you feel like expressing’?
  • This person then has the right to say whatever he or she feels like without interruption – this is most important
  • If anyone does not feel safe to express whatever he or she feels, you are all wasting your time. Remember to play above the line.
  • Once he or she has had a say, this person then asks the next person what they feel like expressing.

When everyone has had their say (and only when everyone has finished) you can then ask if anyone has any ‘burnings’.

A ‘burning’ is where anyone who feels they have been wrongly treated replies to the other person’s feelings or impression, either by apologising or explaining what actually happened.

It is important for everyone to understand that any complaints are not directed personally, rather they focus on behaviour. This is essential to enable everyone to feel safe in voicing any criticism of you or the system so that changes can be made and to ensure progress is always happening.

You could also try other variations of WIFLE, such as the high-low. This is where each team member expresses their high and their low for the week during the WIFLE.

Holding these sessions regularly is a great way to create a culture of open and honest communication, which is critical to building a winning team. It ensures time is always set aside for talking and airing any issues which could otherwise quickly fester into something bigger, that could ultimately affect people’s enjoyment of their time at work – and their wellbeing.

For more information on team building and improving workplace culture, contact your ActionCOACH today.