Behavioural change expert The Chalfont Project has partnered with data and analytics business Fruitful Insights to help employers get to grips with the core drivers of impaired wellbeing and associated cultural challenges in their organisation.

Fruitful Insights has the expertise to not only identify the drivers of wellbeing, but also to quantify the impact on workforce productivity; key to monitoring and measuring progress over time, and in a way that speaks to Board priorities.

The Chalfont Project is an expert in peer-to-peer behavioural change. In other words, the creation of social movements within organisations, driven by ‘people like us’; the only way to effect large-scale and sustainable cultural change.

The strategic partnership between these two organisations is built on the premise that culture is crucial to employee wellbeing. It’s forged by the understanding that there is no cultural change without behavioural change.

The vital importance of culture is underpinned by mounting evidence* that for wellbeing to work for people and business, it must go beyond the introduction of solutions and services – and other traditional top-down methods such as training and ‘awareness’ – that only tackle issues at a superficial level and not at their core.

Crucially, this partnership announcement comes at a time when Employee Experience (EX) leaders report that many large organisations are turning their backs on EX principles, “back-pedalling” on employee wellbeing initiatives, such as flexible working, mental health support and, instead, doubling down on traditional top-down management styles.

Such U-turns are arguably driven by news over the last year that, in spite of all the investment in workplace wellbeing: only 10% of UK employees feel like they are engaged or thriving at work; workplace absences are at their highest level in over a decade; and stress, depression or anxiety account for the huge majority of working-days lost due to work-related ill-health (16.4 million in 2023/24).

Research by Fruitful Insights suggests that helping the UK working population reach both a level of high individual wellbeing and commitment could generate as much as £34 billion in improved productivity per year. It also found that cultural factors represented the key drivers that positively or negatively impact wellbeing.

This is especially the case for the younger generation (Generation Z: those with a working age of between 16 and 27 years old as at 2023). Separate research by Fruitful revealed that, although the most financially stressed of all generations, happiness at work for Generation Z is more about cultural factors than money.

Mike Tyler, Chairman and Co-Founder of Fruitful Insights, says: “This important partnership with The Chalfont Project helps employers identify where the real problems lie and provides the behavioural change expertise needed to build more sustainable cultural foundations; crucial to wellbeing, yet all too often overlooked. The business case for such change being supported by our ability to quantify the impact of wellbeing on productivity.

“This isn’t about throwing out everything that has gone before on wellbeing. It’s about making everything simply work better, for people and business.”

Dr Leandro Herrero, Chief Organizational Architect & Founder of The Chalfont Project, Author and International Speaker, adds: “Wellbeing is as much about a sense of trust, respect, feeling heard, and enjoying collaboration and camaraderie with colleagues, as it is about fixing problems for individuals. Yet the former, which is all about behaviours, all too often gets relegated in favour of the latter.

“Our partnership with Fruitful Insights couldn’t come at a more urgent time. It will help employers create the all-important conditions for wellbeing. This includes eliminating the siloes and complexity that plague workplace wellbeing currently. It will provide a way to join the dots between everything that has the potential to lead to wellbeing outcomes; from employee experience and engagement, to diversity equity inclusion (DEI). Culture is the foundation to everything. And the only way to effect sustainable culture change is via peer-to-peer behavioural change. Unfortunately, many a cultural change programme fails through neglect of this fact.”

*Dr William Fleming, Employee wellbeing outcomes from individual-level wellbeing interventions: Cross-sectional evidence from the United Kingdom, University of Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre, Jan 2024

National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, Mental wellbeing at work: Recommendations, March 2022