Co-designing a new team identity for TfL Health and Wellbeing and a culture of preventative, proactive and reactive health and wellbeing. Equipping the team with tools and experiences to continue to innovate for their 28,000 colleagues and improve retention rates, reduce absences, increase productivity and employee health and happiness.
Video Credit: Ona Studio
The Bigger Picture – Health Is A Pillar of Productivity Investment
Health and wellbeing in the workplace is often seen through outdated transactional lenses: By employers as a cost, and by employees as perks to augment their salary.
Many employers see the cost of gym memberships, free eye tests and training up physical and mental health first-aiders as table stakes to match competing employers. Employees often see benefits to augment their salary, and a gauge of how well an employer cares for its employees. In countries such as the US, where health insurance is intrinsically tied to your employer, the term ‘benefits’ has much more gravitas, equating to access to most healthcare for you and your family, from future trips to the accident ward and treatments for long-term illnesses.
But there are also enormous benefits to employers to invest deeply in the preventative, proactive and reactive health of their colleagues – including happier, healthier, better performing workers, fewer sick days, lower turnover and the recruitment costs that go with it. Employers the world over often consider ‘investment in productivity’ simply as new processes, training and technologies (software platforms, automation and upgraded hardware), and don’t see employee health at the same level.
Zooming out further, we should question the paradigms of productivity and how governments similarly see investment as bureaucratic infrastructure to react and keep up with market and industry shifts – outward investment – at the cost of seeing inward investment in people as an equal pillar of productivity. The UK frequently laments falling behind in productivity growth amongst its G7 peers – being second last in the G7 after Italy as reported in the Nuffield Foundation’s June 2024 briefing to Government. The Times also provides an overview here which notably omits employee health and wellbeing:
“While the human resources team might think of the concept in terms of training or retention, the chief financial officer would look at cost efficiency and return on investment. The operations director might focus on making best use of technology, while the marketing department would concentrate on improving the value of the brand.”
– Why productivity is so weak at UK companies, Andrew Hill, 25/07/2023
The Programme
Impact on Urban Health: Health by Design is led by Guys & St Thomas’ Foundation, exploring the social determinants of health in the central London boroughs of Southwark and Lambeth. The Employee health Fund is a partnership with the Design Council specifically looking at co-designing better health in the workplace, explained in the video at the top of this article (with some words from super-client Dr Sam Philips, Head of Health and Wellbeing at TfL, and an over-caffeinated yours truly). The report includes a case study on this project (pages 24-33) informed by an interview with the Design Council.
The Project: Elevating TfL’s Health and Wellbeing Team
Transport for London is a not-for-profit institution whose 28,000 colleagues keeps London moving. With many safety-critical roles, understanding and supporting the health and wellbeing of colleagues is paramount.
At the outset of the project, we learned that this relationship is viewed with hesitancy and mistrust by some colleagues, fearful that a failed eye test or random alcohol test could mean the end of their careers. This internal cultural perception is despite the above-and beyond services provided by the 60-strong health and wellbeing team and their mission to keep colleagues well and in work, particularly when issues arise.
The Process – Over 100 research interactions
I led the service design side of things alongside The Engine Room who were partnering on brand and communications strategy. Together we conducted almost 30 interviews, visited a number of different TfL sites around London (and saw some very cool and historic infrastructure) and shadowed clinicians and other health and wellbeing specialists through moments such as proactive health screening visits and routine onboarding and wellness checks for new employees.
Wherever we went, colleagues were incredibly open with their time and opinions, giving us a rich picture of the history and evolution of health and wellbeing at TfL. Through six sessions including online and in-person workshops, we were able to hold a mirror up to the team and show them the amazing work they were already doing, and how colleagues who have closely interacted with the team often have glowing reviews. Conversely, but so predictably, those with less contact and knowledge of the team had more skepticism. A few key artefacts were developed as part of this process of building the mirror:
Service Ecosystem
There is a noticeable gap in uptake and scalability of services despite their positive impact. By mapping out the service ecosystem against preventative, proactive and reactive services, we were able to help support the case for scaling and commissioning by providing a single picture of what TfL provides, and where trends today and in future may reveal gaps where new services can be added.
Key Shifts: The Iceberg Model
This combines two useful tools. The Iceberg model typically explains and unpacks the underlying causes of what we perceive on the surface today. By combining this with a list of ‘shifts’ we want to work towards in future, we can see how we need to change all of the underlying issues at present in order to support how things will be perceived in the future. Details are left out of this public post, but you can see the key frameworks delivered to TfL to help equip them for the future.
Innovation Card Deck
The most powerful thing a designer or anyone wishing to influence change in an organisation can use is often the voices of those we are seeking to serve. By meticulously working through and categorising hundreds of quotes from interviews, I was able to develop an innovation toolkit – a card deck with key insights (fundamental truths about the organisation today), a tension identified to validate possible change, and quotes to support them. These cards cover a range of categories, and can be used in informal meetings as well as full-scale workshops. They include Challenge Cards: Articulated as missions with insights, supporting quotes and ‘How Might We…’? questions, and also Prompt Cards: To add more dimensions to ideas generation.
Celebrating the Work: Service Ideas Exhibition
The workshops throughout the process were a trial run for the toolkit, with the sessions informing the design of the toolkit, and parts of the toolkit being developed through each workshop. This cyclical approach helped to calibrate the ‘fuel’ for ideas (the content of the cards) and build energy and interest amongst the team as they found confidence in developing ideas to evolve and introduce new services grounded in the needs, assets and experiences of the team and wider colleagues across TfL. Twelve ideas were presented back to the team across the four key challenges at an exhibition event and open day at their new custom-built Health and Wellbeing building at London Bridge station.
By developing insights from over 100 interactions with colleagues, we were able to redesign the Health and Wellbeing Team’s identity and direction to help overcome anxieties within and outside the team about an employer’s role in the health and wellbeing of individuals.
This project serves as a case study to any employer seeking to improve their productivity. New software platforms, technology and more innovative and effective processes are often ‘top down’ implementations. Remembering and investing in the human side of an organisation is a bottom-up (or ‘grass roots’) way of transforming culture by enabling employees to feel more valued and to be at their best.