Newsletter #35 – June 2025

The podcast is available via all major podcast platforms, just search ‘Evolve Workplace Wellbeing Podcast’ or alternatively use our direct link:

https://evolveworkplacewellbeing.buzzsprout.com/2109567/episodes/17272578-fostering-a-culture-of-trust-and-proactivity-for-wellbeing-in-smes

Being appreciated by colleagues can help employees cope with negative experiences at work, according to a new study involving the University of East Anglia. The research was published in the journal Work & Stress, and involved Prof George Michaelides, our colleague from UEA and other researchers from the University of Cyprus and Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, in Greece. They found that employees experience ‘embitterment’ – an emotional response to perceived workplace injustice – on days when they are assigned more unreasonable tasks than usual.

Recognition from colleagues helps employees cope with bad work experiences – evolveworkplacewellbeing.org

Read the journal article open access here: Full article: Daily workplace embitterment and work-related rumination during off-job time: illegitimate tasks as antecedents and the buffering role of appreciation

How can data and dialogue truly inform and persuade workplace change?
Join us at our next Business Breakfast to learn how organisations can improve workplace wellbeing and performance via continuous learning. This session brings together Dr Helen Fitzhugh (Workplace Wellbeing Researcher), Anna Syson (Head of Workforce Policy and Wellbeing, Cambridgeshire Council), and Matt Wilson (UK Wellbeing Lead, Computacenter) to explore how organisations can use multiple sources of insight to drive real improvements in wellbeing and performance. From building data dashboards to embedding ways to speak up and feed back, our speakers will share practical strategies and lessons learned.

Register here: Norwich Business School – Business Breakfast 01/07/2025 Registration

We are excited to be starting two new projects funded by NIHR.

Their websites are now live – take a look…

WISHES: Workplace Intervention for Sustainable Health and Employment Support – A research project focusing on employment for people with disabilities and severe health problems, aiming to provide simple, accessible, and effective solutions.

NIHR – Creating Healthy Jobs

Keep an eye out for upcoming news on how to be involved in these projects.

Do you have a colleague who might be interested in joining the Evolve monthly newsletter list to hear the latest research insights and opportunities on workplace wellbeing?

If so – please forward on this edition of our newsletter to them and suggest they join. (Sign up box is available if you scroll down the home page www.evolveworkplacewellbeing.org )

AND / OR

Please encourage people to follow our (relatively) new LinkedIn page!

https://www.linkedin.com/company/evolveworkplacewellbeing/

We are committed to reaching impact at scale for the Evolve findings and resources and your help would be massively appreciated. Can you help double our subscription list?

The next session is scheduled – members only:

·         Sickness presenteeism: is it always bad?

·         Prof Maria Karanika-Murray, Professor of Work and Organisational Psychology, University of Leicester

·         17^th June, 12:30 – 14:00

Applications to join the Network are open and membership is free to practitioners who have direct wellbeing responsibilities in organisations (e.g. HR, OD, OH or wellbeing job titles).

Read more about joining the network here: The Evolve Workplace Wellbeing Network – evolveworkplacewellbeing.org

As per our data protection agreement with our subscribers, we have started to send out emails to check if you want to stay on our list after 3 years. We very much want to stay in conversation with you, so please reply to your subscription renewal email as soon as it arrives. Hitting reply with subject ‘Yes’ is all it takes to keep receiving the newsletter monthly, for free, for another three years (and to avoid the multiple follow-up emails we will send to check in with you before we prune the list!)

In this section we compile other evidence-informed links to pieces on workplace wellbeing that we have found interesting. The following are not produced by the Evolve Workplace Wellbeing team.

–          Professor Gail Kinman and Dr Christine Grant for Society of Occupational Medicine: Understanding_Sickness_Presenteeism_May2025.pdf

–          The mental health of HR: What 1,400 voices tell us about a profession in distress – HRZone

–          Mechanisms Underlying the Effects of Work from Home on Careers in the Post-Covid Context – Anna Matysiak, Agnieszka Kasperska, Ewa Cukrowska-Torzewska, 2025

–          Full article: How inclusive is higher education for female disabled staff? Stigmas & stoppers