How do you install a system for welfare in your organisation?

Welfare is more than just a bowl of fruit in the office. It may sound like a cliché, yet in practice we see organisations slipping into this pattern time and time again: isolated initiatives, ad hoc projects and offerings that relieve symptoms rather than addressing root causes. The underlying problems, however, are real and more urgent than ever. Burnout rates continue to rise, regulations surrounding long-term illness are becoming stricter and employers are increasingly being held accountable when employees are unable to work due to health-related absence. 

Katleen De Stobbeleir, Professor of Leadership and the head researcher on Vlerick’s side, cuts to the chase: “Companies invest heavily in cafeteria plans to cater to each employee individually. Yet despite all this customisation, employee welfare is at a historic low. An individualised approach does not solve the underlying problems.” 

A broad perspective: physical, mental, social, professional and financial welfare 

To address this growing imbalance, the researchers advocate a firmly holistic view of welfare built on five pillars: physical, mental, social, professional and financial. The first two have now become familiar terrain, while the other three are still overlooked all too often in corporate policy. But that is set to change. 

“Digitalisation and the rapid adoption of AI will ensure that these three pillars, in particular, will carry far greater weight in the years ahead”, says Katleen De Stobbeleir. “Initial customer interactions are increasingly handled through a chatbot. But this decline in human interaction can have a genuine impact on social welfare. Consider a salesperson who is highly skilled at reading a prospect and draws a great deal of energy from that first interaction, for example. The professional pillar is closely linked to productivity: people who feel good perform better. Yet AI is gradually taking over tasks, which is also placing professional welfare under increasing pressure. And then there is the financial dimension: how will the profits generated partly by AI be redistributed? Will they flow only to the ‘happy few’, further widening the wage gap? As yet, the European AI Act does not provide an answer to this question. I’m a total tech optimist and believe that AI will create new roles. However, we should not be blind to the shifts that this will entail and the impact it will have on employee welfare.” 

A system for welfare requires cooperation 

This broad perspective is also essential in the view of Inge Hermans, head of Solutions Support at KBC Bank & Verzekering and project leader at KBC. “Employee welfare is the result of cooperation between different stakeholders: government, employers, employees and insurers. Focusing on just one aspect is not enough. In our role as an insurer, we currently spend more on hospital admissions than on prevention, even though many of these admissions could be avoided. Social legislation that places greater emphasis on prevention and sustainability is already a step in the right direction.” 

Katleen De Stobbeleir acknowledges that we are still some distance from this kind of system, in which different stakeholders collaborate structurally. “One stakeholder that still receives too little attention in academic research is the manager. Compared with neighbouring countries, Belgium has a relatively high number of SMEs, which generally invest less in leadership development. By means of our research, we aim to map out precisely what impact this has on employee welfare.” 

Embedded within Vlerick 

The research project is embedded within the Vlerick Centre for Excellence in Leading Adaptive Organisations (CELAO), the expertise centre that supports organisations in strategic and cultural transformation processes. “At the Centre, we focus on strengthening the agility and resilience of organisations and individuals worldwide. The central question is: which insights can help organisations and people navigate sustainably in a working environment that is changing ever more rapidly and profoundly?”  

Kurt Termote, Director of Life & Health Insurance and Pension Funds at KBC Bank & Verzekering, highlighted the importance of this question when signing the partnership agreement: “This collaboration fits perfectly within our ambition to evolve from an insurer into a strategic partner for employers. The combination of academic insight and practical experience is what makes the difference.” 

Would you like to find out more about this research or the CELAO? Please contact Elke Vandewiele.