Arosha Brouwer, Chief Impact Officer Colbe & TrueTribe
Wellbeing that works
For the past six years, my work has centred on one idea: placing wellbeing at the heart of success. Across hundreds of teams, one thing kept coming up. Many organisations care deeply about their people and still struggle to make progress on the topic of "wellbeing". They run surveys, offer programmes and discuss absence figures in the management report. There is plenty of attention, but attention on its own doesn't improve a situation.
At Colbe, I've been fortunate to work with a great team on solving exactly this. Together, we've combined six years of research into team and work wellbeing with 30 years of experience in absence management and occupational health, and the result is the Work Wellbeing Capability Model.
Wellbeing versus work wellbeing
Wellbeing is about how a person is doing overall, across every part of their life. Work wellbeing is narrower and more actionable: it's about whether the work itself lets people function in a healthy, connected, competent and meaningful way. That shifts the question from how resilient employees are to how well the organisation designs work, leadership and support. That's something an organisation can actually shape.
Knowing where you stand
The model describes six maturity levels, from Non-compliance to System design. It helps organisations see where they are today and what a realistic next step looks like.
That matters, because there are no shortcuts. An organisation that is still mainly registering and reporting absence can't suddenly switch to managing preventively and on data. Each level builds on the one before it, and skipping ahead usually means going back later.
From reacting to understanding
In the early levels, organisations mostly approach wellbeing through legal obligations and bringing absence down. The focus is on getting the basics in place and recognising signals early. Along the way, a lot of data gets collected, but absence records, HR data and survey results usually sit in separate places and don't talk to each other. HR, management, finance and the occupational health provider each see their own piece, and nobody has a shared view of what's really going on.
As organisations develop, their data, policy, interventions and daily practice start to connect, and the conversation moves from what is happening to why it's happening and what people need. The most interesting moments are the moves from one level to the next. That's usually when an organisation realises what it can't yet do, and decides to work on it anyway. It's rarely comfortable, but it's where most of the real progress happens.
What a mature organisation looks like
In the most mature organisations, wellbeing is part of how the organisation is run and designed. It influences decisions about leadership, how work is organised and staffing, and it gets as much serious attention as the finances do. For employees, that means feeling safe, seen and heard. When someone goes through a difficult period, their manager responds with care, and people can get the right support when they need it.
Making wellbeing measurable
One of the most exciting parts of the model is that it connects work wellbeing to productivity, so the impact can be measured. Boards and leadership teams make decisions based on figures and evidence. When wellbeing can show its impact in those terms, it becomes something HR and management can discuss together, rather than something that stays within HR. I often say that an organisation cannot exceed the consciousness of its leader. Moving from absence management to real work wellbeing needs leaders who see it as part of how the business performs, and who want to see it done well.
Getting the basics right
Maturing isn't about measuring more or adding more programmes and policies. It's about getting better at understanding what people need to do their work well, and being able to act on that. That takes a shared language, clear responsibilities, good data and leaders who take wellbeing as seriously as any other part of performance.
Most of all, it takes patience and discipline: understanding where you are before reaching for the next solution, getting the basics right, learning from what works and building from there. The hope is that our friends in HR and senior leadership can use this model to have honest conversations about the topics that matter most, and to see them in a completely new light.
The Work Wellbeing Capability Model is part of Colbe's white paper From absence management to work wellbeing: gaining control, proving impact and investing with focus with the Colbe Work Wellbeing Capability Model. Read it here: