William Fleming holds a PhD in sociology from The University of Cambridge, and is currently a post-doctoral research fellow at Oxford University’s Wellbeing Research Center. He joins me on the podcast to talk about the lack of evidence for workplace mental health and wellbeing initiatives. William starts by giving a history of workplace wellbeing initiatives tracing back to the British Quakers who provided food, housing, and recreational facilities for their employees beginning in the 18th century. We then get into the popular “business case” for investing in employee wellbeing initiatives before turning to William’s research which finds that these have no effect. We conclude by discussing what changes to organizational practices can actually improve employee mental health, and tradeoffs between individual and collective wellbeing.

You can find the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.

Links:

* William Fleming, Employee well-being outcomes from individual-level mental health interventions: Cross-sectional evidence from the United Kingdom.

* Ellen Barry, Workplace Wellness Programs Have Little Benefit, Study Finds.

* Jonah Davids, Corporate Mental Health Programs Don't Work.

* Jesse Singal, The Quick Fix.

* Kelly et al., Overload: How Good Jobs Went Bad and What We can Do about It.

* David Graeber, B******t Jobs: A Theory.

* Soffia et al., Alienation is not 'b******t': An empirical critique of Graeber's theory of BS jobs.

* Simon Walo, ‘B******t’ After All? Why People Consider Their Jobs Socially Useless.

* William’s Twitter, LinkedIn, Email