Engineering Better Workplaces: Bringing Systems Thinking to the Human Capital Challenge

Most engineers would refuse to build on faulty foundations.

Business leaders may argue they don’t have that time or luxury in our volatile and complex social media, news cycle-addled world, and that building new programs on rotten foundations is just a hazard of doing business in the current environment.

But rushing to find easy and quick solutions to highly complex workplace issues, such as inequity and mental health, rarely works and often even backfires — creating additional problems instead of solving existing ones.

The pushback again Diversity Equity and Inclusion programs (DEI) is here — the one on “employee well-being” will likely soon follow.

After Diversity Theater came Caring Theater. Now, leaders wonder why many organizations seem to be winding up with negative returns on investment for these diversity and well-being programs. Workplaces are even more toxic than before, and employees are headed for the exits for various reasons related to the problems businesses are trying to prevent.

On both fronts, companies followed similar playbooks.

What happened? And why did such well-intentioned programs end up with outcomes far below expectations?

First, leaders ignored issues that were in plain sight — until the murder of George Floyd (as well as other concurrent race and gender-related events) and the COVID pandemic propelled both DEI and mental health into headlines and then boardrooms. (We wrote about this “end of pretending” in July 2020).

By then, a lot of damage had been done in and by inequitable and unsupportive workplaces.

Then organizations scrambled to say the right things about DEI and employee well-being— placating critics but also giving hope to affected constituencies and those who care about them. Companies invested billions into training and resources. They created new staff or positions, such as Chief Diversity and Chief People Officers, many of whom felt limited in their ability to effect change. Key terms were not defined, but goals were set, especially around metrics that were easy to track.

Different Blueprints?

This disappointing outcome, which has cost businesses dearly financially and reputationally, is partly due to a failure to take the time to find root causes for exclusion, racism, and low engagement at work—long after we have stopped pretending these things aren’t problems, but before we came up with solutions that would actually move the needle.

Companies need to consider different approaches to overcome the current resistance to DEI and “well-being at work.”

“Anybody can build a bridge, but it takes an engineer to build a bridge that barely stands.”

This engineering adage suggests finding solutions that are as effective as possible and using the minimum amount of resources to accomplish a goal.

In other words, it’s easy to build a bridge that stands if you have unlimited resources. With unlimited resources, we could build solid gold bridges.

It is significantly more challenging to build an effective bridge within budgetary constraints: a bridge that is slightly over-engineered beyond the safety limit — but also won’t break the bank and features good design.

In response to workers’ mental health challenges, many companies invested indiscriminately in badly engineered, one-size-fits-all “solutions” (e.g., mindfulness training and mental health apps), hoping something would stick — instead, for many public and private organizations, they build golden bridges to nowhere.

For example, little thought seems to have gone into generating efficient, well-engineered changes at work to help employees recalibrate after the trauma of COVID-19. Those who have advocated for years that solving the employee engagement crisis would require a complete rethinking of work processes seem vindicated.

Enter the engineer. If pure scientists generate hypotheses — engineers are scientists that generate actual solutions.

Engineers are trained to find root causes, challenge assumptions, understand stress and feedback loops, revel in problem-solving and the scientific method, and operate within the theory of constraints.

Systems thinking, pattern recognition, pragmatism, and metrics are also needed. Many engineers work on cross-functional teams to solve complex problems, so they are familiar with integrating multiple viewpoints, often across several disciplines, to create working products.

Engineers also bring ingeniousness and creativity to this conversation. In fact, the etymology of the word “engineer” comes from the Latin ingenium, meaning “cleverness,” and ingeniare, meaning “to contrive, devise.” So, it is no surprise that many CEOs have engineering degrees—not just in tech companies.

Beyond the headlines, driving human imperatives around diversity, opportunity, and engagement will remain central to organizational life and important for societal evolution.

But in the next chapter of the playbook, let us learn from core engineering concepts to rethink how to best approach maximizing human performance at work and minimizing failure — disengagement, turnover, and burnout.

These can help us answer key questions, such as:

1. What is really the problem, and where should we best allocate resources to help solve it?
2. What are the positive and negative feedback loops that impact inclusion and support at work?
3. How will we think about the tradeoff between efficiency and robustness and the cost of success?
4. How do we prevent burnout in ourselves and others by understanding the stress-strain curve?
5. How do we apply systems engineering to engage the organization in thinking about “mental health for all and by all”?

Digging In to Dig Out (photo credit: Ellen Feldman)

Delving into Root Causes to Optimize Resources

The interchange above encapsulates the problem. Businesses know they need to address these issues, but solutions either are overengineered, inadequate, or occur as insulting, or result in comedic inadequacy, which isn’t good for the business (or society), long-term.

Engineering perspective:

When a system fails, or there is an incident or complaint, engineers conduct a Root Cause Analysis to identify what happened and who and what might be to blame. Another well-known concept is the so-called fishbone diagram or Ishikawa Diagram, which is particularly helpful to prompt different thinking by identifying categories or causes of a problem. Finally, asking why over and over again can help us confront assumptions. The questions we ask ourselves reflect the people we aim to become.

Workplace illustrations:

It is our belief that a substantial re-engineering of the entire employee lifecycle is called for. We believe it is important to return to “first principles” and address the root causes of distrust and stress, including how employees — and leaders — are recruited.

Companies often ignore red flags and recruit charming but manipulative individuals who negatively impact the organization. When just 5% of a workplace engages in non-constructive behaviors, productivity drops, and turnover increases. One toxic individual on a team lowers productivity by 30–40% and makes team members twice as likely to leave. (source)

Additionally, companies tend to focus on employee well-being only after employees are already in the door. Delving into root causes of dissatisfaction before hiring might lead to substantial re-engineering of the entire recruiting process. This includes a longer timeline for hiring, which would involve completing sample work tasks, social outings with potential co-workers to assess personality compatibility, and so on.

Or, alternatively, instead of hiring by attribution, we might investigate how a faster hiring cycle would lower the stress on candidates, especially candidates with lower financial flexibility. This would require rethinking the probationary period and having more faith overall that all candidates have something unique to contribute and a “Divine Spark” and are worth being given a chance to shine.

Additionally, arbitrary or AI-governed winnowing of candidates from only their resumes short-changes both the business and the long-term potential of prospective hires. Companies that write poor job descriptions, ghost candidates during the hiring process, and misrepresent benefits and progression possibilities are not building a healthy foundation, especially as trust is integral to employee well-being. (more here)

Another way to “build a bridge that barely stands” is to move away from expensive “golden bridge for all” solutions to a more effective and personalized mental health care (e.g., “wellness bonus” or dog walking and massage certificate instead of mindfulness apps) and other kinds of “real-time” support, which is provided to employees not in weeks or months but within days or hours by small, dedicated “wellness teams.” Seeing employees only as monoliths can cause resource misallocation.

Reflection questions:

• How can you think upstream about promoting well-being so you don't have to invest in “palliative care” downstream?
• What would happen if companies were more honest in interviews about the demands and resources of the job? Might this lead to more honesty for candidates and better matching?
• How do companies expect to recover from damage to trust that occurs even before employees start on their first day? A sales commission promised at 13% in the interview that drops to 10% on the first day means that employee is already looking for a new job. Unshakeable integrity on the part of management — from the first encounter and all the way down the line is critical for employee retention.

Distinguishing Positive / Negative Feedback Loops

Engineering perspective:

Engineers understand feedback loops are part of any system in which some of the system’s output becomes the input for future activities. So, in a simple engineering example, an input would be created, the output would be collected or captured and stored in a second stage, the output would be analyzed in the third stage, and then the result would be used to make new decisions in the final stage.

There are negative and positive feedback loops.

Positive feedback loops tend to be more accurate by replicating actions that tend to lead to change. In psychology, “positive” feedback loops can lead to self-critical thinking and a lack of self-compassion. Negative feedback loops aren’t always “negative.” For example, in the case of a heating system, a self-regulating negative feedback loop will enable the system to maintain the desired heat; in biology, there are similar systems for both temperature control and healing. Negative feedback loops are not always as accurate — they tend to function around acceptable statistical ranges.

Workplace illustrations:

This is useful in the current context as “store-bought” (or internally generated) solutions to DEI and employee well-being don’t exist in a vacuum and will need to be monitored and adjusted on a real-time basis to improve overall functionality.

A company’s inability to reduce involuntary turnover worsens team morale and worries employees about who will leave next. Talented staff start looking for new jobs. Those who remain miss their colleagues and might have to cover any extra work or feel betrayed by management. Their engagement will drop, and turnover might increase. This leads to a positive feedback loop, even though the overall result is negative.

Negative feedback systems can also maintain homeostasis, which would be desirable if a company has a good culture that helps attract and retain employees. A negative feedback loop for team leaders might include praise to reinforce positive behavior after team meetings.

Reflection questions:

• What feedback loops relate to employee engagement and culture in your organization? Do you understand their directionality and impact?
• How can you put feedback loops to work within your organization to monitor and/or improve both DEI and employee wellness programs?
• What do we need to do less of? For example, reminding employees to engage in self-care and take time off without adjusting job demands with job resources might cause even more stress, especially when most of us already feel behind.

Understanding the Stress-Strain Curve

Engineering perspective:

Stress-Strain Curve can help us visualize the impact of stress on performance. Human beings, like metals and other materials, can tolerate a great deal of strain before being deformed beyond the point of no return.

Workplace implications:

Thinking of ourselves and our colleagues, employees, and bosses as materials, each with their particular stress-strain curve, can make us more attuned to watching for points of stress (which tend to be around inflection points, such as grief from death or divorce, but also changes in lifestyle, identity, or workload resulting from a marriage or a promotion). It is time for companies also to revisit their assumptions about workers’ ability to deal with rising stress.

At those moments, it might be important to reach out, understand a bit more about how an employee wants to be supported, give them more resources to deal with the pressure they are under, or enable them to pull back for a while. A material’s ability to withstand strain is also related to the conditions under which the stress/strain test is conducted.

Here we can think about corporate culture or available benefits, for example. Burnout takes a while to damage us irreparably. As Hemingway quipped when asked how he went bankrupt, “slowly and then overnight.” The same can be true for mental health. One day, we are fine, and the next day, we are broken.

“I had gone from the upbeat, optimistic, quick-witted, confident person I was in 2013 to someone who was chronically negative, full of self-hatred, anxious, and even paranoid. I could not admit it then, but that was the beginning of what became a very deep depression.”

— Ryan Greene, who joined an early-stage start-up after graduation from Harvard Business School (in “Ryan Greene at Rainier Wearables,” Harvard Business School Case 818–047, August 2017. (Revised November 2021.)

No matter how much advice and how many best practices professionals and therapists provide, using those systems of advice and “one-size-fits-all-solutions” can feel risky. In this Harvard Business Review piece, we asked what many wonder, namely, “What to Do for a Struggling Colleague?” Colleagues and employers often prefer to avoid the risk of awkwardness, rejection, challenge, and dismissal when help is offered.

Sometimes, we hope for the best in the scenarios we imagine: “ OK, I will check in with the employee who is apparently in distress, hope that the employee says that they are okay, and we can all just move on.”

Regardless of intent or tactic, how we choose to reach out and address potential behavior or mental health issues often reflects our backgrounds, biases, and lived experiences. The leaders and managers we interviewed for our book on Compassionate Management of Mental Health in the Modern Workplace fell into various categories, ranging from the Mother Hen to the Hyena.

Being overprotective or overaggressive has pros and cons and is shaped by our past, our biases, and our fears. Understanding our patterns and assumptions is essential to good outcomes in all forms of design and problem-solving. It is particularly important to avoid doing more harm than good when engaging with our own challenges as well as the challenges of others.

Reflection questions:

• How do you know if you are like Ryan Greene or work beside a person like him?
• What causes strain on them—which might include self-imposed expectations—that might lead to failure or burnout?
• Is there anything you can change in the context or resources you can provide to change the trajectory of their curve? Or your own?

Managing the Efficiency / Robustness Tradeoff

Engineering perspective:

A highly efficient system might not be the most robust. For example, before the pandemic, just-in-time “barely standing” inventory management had become the norm, but problems became very complex when supply chains were severed.

Again, the most robust solution isn’t necessarily the most expensive or the most efficient. The engineer will tell you, always, that the best solution is always the one that works. And after you figure out what works, then you reverse engineer for efficiency.

Workplace illustrations:

We might be very efficient in progressing our careers, but if we don’t have backups or support, we may not be able to withstand unforeseen financial or personal shocks.

Foregoing sleep and/or taking stimulants can improve performance in the short term, both at school and at work, but stimulant usage might be at the expense of good mental health. Similarly, superstars in sports can create a lot of value by extending their capabilities through a variety of performance-enhancing drugs — but they can also be at greater risk of burning out or creating substantial long-term health problems. The role of managers and team leaders is to educate students and employees about the choices they are making. Not only for themselves but, by extension, for “decisions to keep up,” which they may be forcing on others.

The cost of success and the erosion it can cause to resilience can also become apparent under pressure. Many top athletes, like Michael Phelps and Naomi Osaka, optimize for efficiency but might sacrifice long-term mental and financial resiliency for short-term success. They have been more open about the mental cost of success of success than leaders have.

But leaders, too, suffer, pretending to be heroes defying the efficiency and robustness tradeoff. However, in the context of DEI and employee well-being, employees must believe that management cares and that new programs and pronouncements are not just in reaction to another fad. They need to know they are being understood and listened to by fellow human beings, not perfect robots. Employees will only believe that managers and leaders are FOR them if the latter are willing to share what they go through, too WITH them.

Reflection questions:

• How would you rate your efficiency in achieving your goals? Are you conscious of the costs you impose on others — and yourself?
• What is it doing to your resilience and ability to resist damage under extreme pressure and load?
• How can you help colleagues, employees, and supervisors reflect on this for themselves?
• To what extent are you willing to open up about your concerns?

Applying Systems Thinking

Engineering perspective:

As natural problem-solvers, engineers learn to see problems in a broader context and understand how components influence each other within that broader whole. Systems engineering in business has become very popular, and it can help employees better visualize how their companies operate and what factors influence performance.

Workplace implications:

We are all part of (living) systems. Systems shape us, and we impact the systems with which we interact. Systems engineering encourages a more holistic view of everything that impacts the employee upstream before problems occur versus dealing with potential distress or unhappiness downstream after problems have become apparent.

For mental health and human capital deployment, systems thinking could encourage reviewing many processes related to employee well-being, ranging from structures to psychosocial health and safety policies and processes, from job descriptions to the candidate pool to where people sit in the workplace. To the systems engineer, everything is fair game. And going back to “first principles” and root causes is always Job #1.

Similarly, “tone-deaf” limitations which curtail employee movement, freedom, access to or flexibility for family, high costs to access health care (high deductibles, for example) can lead to an equation which often sends “the bridge that barely stands” crumbling into the river — and employees heading for the exit without the business ever really knowing why. “It’s not just one thing you’re doing, it’s all of them,” the employee might say.

The 3P model, which supports new guidelines for mental health at work released by the World Health Organization and the International Labor Organization in September 2022, is a perfect match with engineer-like thinking. It operates on three levels, and an understanding of risk management, quality systems, and structured approaches is essential for building structures that support both organizational and individual functioning.

Employees’ ability to understand their role is central to employee engagement. It creates a stable tripod of three factors: expectancy (the link between effort and performance), instrumentality (the connection between performance and reward), and valence (the personal assessment of the reward’s value). It can make the difference between passion and pathos.

Reflection questions:

• How will we position ourselves and our organizations in a digital era? Compassion cannot be automated, and there is no better app than ourselves. We cannot outsource our mental well-being and inner growth to anyone else.
• How would our daily lives at work shift if we thought of preventing first? But also all be involved in promoting and supporting, instead of criticizing and capitulating?

Bridging the Gap

Engineers break things into parts, understand the relationships between those parts, are innovative and creative in finding solutions, understand stress and failure, and hedge risks to the extent they can. Good managers also do this.

Of course, engineers are only human, and their approach and training can also limit their impact if they are unable to gain the respect of others, find ways to communicate or dismiss managerial talent, or understand a particular business.

Engineers can provide more than just a particular solution to a problem as a way of thinking about problems, which managers and employees can apply to solve problems in real time.

“Building the bridge to mental health in the workplace” has a solution — but the question remains — what is the “barely standing bridge” that will get us there?

Mental health is part of our whole health. It goes hand in hand with our physical health and moves on a spectrum. There is no perfect mental health “answer” — it is always a moving target influenced by a variety of factors as varied as the number of individuals in a room. Even mental health professionals can make mistakes; though they can be a great help to us in identifying the “elephants in the room” of our own particular stories and help us avoid running into them all the time.

Similarly, managers can view the workplace as a set of interrelated systems and take a system engineer’s approach to solving some of those issues by identifying “elephants in the room” and providing workarounds so people don’t run into them all the time, and/or leverage the “elephants in the room” into something positive for the business.

We can’t necessarily control external situations or obstacles that face us at any given moment, but we can learn to accept those situations and be proactive in changing our responses to those challenges. As such, flexible, and adaptable real-time, or near-real-time, solutions are called for. Even if mistakes are occasionally made, if people feel cared for, they will be more likely to reach out when there is actually a need.

While DEI and employee well-being are not problems with mathematical or engineering solutions, considering a more practical “bridges barely standing” engineering approach to both issues can be useful. It includes the engineer’s “can do” attitude to solving difficult problems, returning to first principles and honest root causes, allowing stakeholders to streamline solutions from “overengineered” to connected root causes, both in the creation phase as well as in real-time, and rejection of unlimited budget and limited thought “golden bridge” solutions in favor of more fundamental solutions with elegant design.

Some of the solutions above are quite simple, and again, they go back to questions of “first principles” and root causes. Some of those first principles and root causes are business-dependent. As with individuals, self-assessment and honest reflection are the foundation of better outcomes. The same holds true for organizations.

In other words, before trying solutions engineered by “experts” — take a careful look at your business and employees and the systems that drive how decisions are made. Dig deeper, with employee input, to challenge the status quo.

A solution put together with rubber bands and paperclips and cranked by hand that works is better than an expensive store-bought solution that doesn’t. In that process, we might discover something new and useful that will benefit others everywhere.

This post reflects a collaboration on a graduate seminar at the Engineering Management Department at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, exploring “Mental Health for Future Engineering Managers: From Personal Resilience to Organizational Health.” (with Professor Amir Momenipour and Susanna Sjoberg).

We are grateful to the students for their contributions and to Noah Couturier, Matthew Vernon Hanson, Ph.D., and Jayanth N. Kolla for further thought engineering!