Understanding what happens when workplace solutions meet everyday pressures.
An organization introduces a clearer way for employees to raise concerns. The process is explained, supervisors receive guidance and everyone is encouraged to use it. There is a reporting channel, a form and a commitment to respond. On paper, the organization has addressed the problem.
Now imagine an employee noticing something that needs attention. They know how to report it, but their contract renewal is approaching. They have seen a colleague labelled “difficult” after questioning how work was being done. Their supervisor is under pressure to meet a deadline. The employee begins weighing the concern against what speaking up might mean for their income, relationships and future at work.
The reporting process exists. Whether that employee feels able to use it is another question.
This illustrative scenario shows how a reasonable solution can struggle to become everyday practice. An instruction enters a workplace where people are already managing pressures and experiences. Understanding why change does not stick means examining what happens when the solution meets those realities.
Knowing what to do is part of the picture
The COM-B model, developed by Susan Michie and colleagues, offers a useful foundation. It identifies three interacting conditions that influence behaviour: capability, opportunity and motivation. We need to consider whether people can perform the behaviour, whether their circumstances allow it and what influences them to do it. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Applied to work, this raises questions beyond whether instructions were delivered. Have people understood and practised what is expected? Are time, equipment and support available? What happens when following the new process conflicts with another demand?
Training may strengthen knowledge while leaving a practical obstacle untouched. A procedure may clarify responsibilities while adding steps that cannot fit into the available time. An invitation to participate may reach people who are still deciding whether contributing is worth the risk.
What feels more urgent?
From an occupational health perspective, I am interested in what people carry into the workday as well as what the workday asks of them. Someone may be managing pain, fatigue, treatment, financial strain or uncertainty about continued employment. These concerns may influence their response to an initiative, even when they understand its purpose.
The World Health Organization identifies job insecurity, excessive workloads, low control, discrimination, bullying and limited support among risks to mental health at work. That supports examining working conditions alongside individual behaviour, without assuming we know someone’s health status or circumstances. www.who.int
An employee may welcome an initiative encouraging early access to support while worrying about confidentiality or how disclosing a difficulty will affect their treatment at work. Someone concerned about victimization may feel that remaining quiet protects them from an immediate consequence.
Those concerns deserve exploration. Is the fear connected to personal experience, something witnessed or uncertainty about the process? The answer matters when deciding what support or action is needed.
What does everyday experience reinforce?
A leader may sincerely encourage questions while being unaware of how questioning is received elsewhere in the organization. Employees may hear that feedback is welcome, then encounter irritation, public criticism or an unanswered concern. Those experiences influence how they assess the next invitation.
Daily priorities can send conflicting messages too. An organization may encourage thorough checks while rewarding speed. It may ask employees to attend a wellbeing activity without arranging coverage, or introduce a detailed handover without enough overlap between shifts.
Employees and supervisors then have to choose between competing expectations. What appears to be resistance may include a conflict the proposed solution has not addressed.
Resources are limited and urgent work arises. Organizations need to make those trade-offs clear, consider their consequences and adjust expectations accordingly. People need to understand what takes priority and what to do when the demands cannot all be met.
From understanding to application
In his article Information Isn’t Learning. Change Is., Alister H.D. Sampson challenges organizations to examine what changes after training, project reviews and documented lessons. His emphasis on application raises a useful question: what happens after people understand what needs to change?
Understanding can exist before someone is able to act. A supervisor may understand delegation while still needing approval for routine decisions. An employee may recognize a safer approach while worrying about the consequences of questioning established practice. Before concluding that a lesson was missed, we need to examine what stands between understanding and application—including whether the proposed solution fits the problem.
Individual responsibility remains, alongside the organization’s responsibility to make expectations workable. Reviewing how a process worked during a busy shift, checking resources and asking what people found difficult helps establish whether an adjustment is needed. What changed, what still gets in the way, and how will we know the adjustment helped?
Bringing the different perspectives into view
This connects with The Bénies Collective’s focus on repeated instructions, recurring problems and changes that do not stick. Each gives us a reason to explore the distance between what the organization expects and what people experience.
Senior leadership may see a solution that has been approved and communicated. A supervisor may see competing operational demands. Employees may encounter an obstacle or fear the consequences of explaining why the process is not working. Hearing these perspectives can reveal where expectations and experience differ.
An immersive workplace experience can provide a structured opportunity to examine that difference. Participants might work through a scenario from the positions of an employee, a supervisor and a decision-maker. The discussion can surface assumptions and practical conflicts that need to be checked against the actual workplace.
Sensitive concerns require appropriate channels. Participation should not depend on publicly disclosing personal health information or experiences of victimization. Facilitation can help clarify what needs attention, while those authorized to make decisions must be involved in the response.
What surfaces should lead to an agreed action, a responsible person and a point for review.
Before repeating the instruction
When a problem returns, another reminder may be useful. It is also worth asking what the previous reminder could not change.
Choose one recurring issue and examine the moment when the expected action becomes difficult. What knowledge, resources or authority are needed? What competing demand appears? What does the person expect will happen if they follow the process—or explain that it is not working?
These questions give the organization something concrete to investigate and help shape a response that fits the problem.
When a solution does not stick, we need to examine both the solution and the conditions in which people are expected to use it.
What might people in your workplace be managing that the current solution has not yet accounted for?
Seeing a recurring concern in your workplace? Visit Start Here on The Bénies Collective website to take the Workplace Pulse Check and reflect on what you’re noticing.
