Acerta

The only thing is, most of that attention concerns salaried employees. What about all the people who are self-employed? Their mental wellbeing is still largely ignored. Acerta has been working to change this for several years now. Acerta provides full-service HR services to support entrepreneurs’ growth at every stage, and has been working to address their wellbeing in partnership with IDEWE’s Creative Connect Centre. 

Years ago, they planted the first seed with a wellbeing scan. Meanwhile, they have collected large-scale insights on the wellbeing of the self-employed, which Acerta uses to create specific initiatives.

Greater insight, greater wellbeing

Every year, IDEWE’s Creative Connect Centre analyses the data from wellbeing scans carried out by its customers (self-employed people, freelancers, etc.). The analyses reveal trends, frequent bottlenecks and opportunities for targeted support.  

“This greatly increases our understanding of the subject matter and enables us to offer the self-employed services much more closely tailored to their wellbeing needs”, says Carla Van Corenland, Manager Extended Services at Acerta. “For example, analysis revealed financial stress as a contributor to poor wellbeing, so we began designing a financial wellbeing process. By tracking broader trends for key wellbeing parameters and linking these to our initiatives, we can also measure the initiatives’ ROI.”

The ‘Job-Life Demands-Resources’ model extends the classic model to apply to the self-employed

The Creative Connect Centre’s analyses have a scientific basis. They are built upon four key criteria for good and bad mental wellbeing among the self-employed: emotional balance, work-life balance, professional relationships and financial stress. Classic wellbeing models rarely address the latter two factors. 
“After all, these are parameters that specifically apply to the self-employed”, says Carla. “Because the traditional ‘Job-Demands-Resources’ model is mainly aimed at employees, IDEWE introduced a ‘Job-Life demands-Resources’ model for this project. It acts as the scientific framework for the Creative Connect Centre’s analyses and other wellbeing initiatives.”

Your own boss, including of your wellbeing 

So, the story began with the launch of a wellbeing scan that Acerta uses to give the self-employed insight into their own wellbeing. According to Carla, this remains more necessary than ever.

“Besides the many benefits, being your own boss also comes with challenges. The self-employed are more likely to keep going until they drop. Consciously or subconsciously, they tend to assign less importance to their own wellbeing. After all, they are financially dependent on their work. In addition, there can be a higher threshold for help with wellbeing issues. There are often fewer colleagues to notice the signs or with whom to share the load, or even none at all. Nor is there a manager to pick up on the signs and intervene.” 

Working on prevention for the self-employed together

The full project is a response by Acerta, as initiator and coordinator, and IDEWE, as the partner on content, to a call from the FPS Social Security regarding wellbeing prevention for the self-employed. The wellbeing scan is the project’s data collection component. Self-employed workers who complete the scan are contributing a growing knowledge base, which is analysed annually by the Creative Connect Centre. 

The self-employed are an important factor in our prosperity. Their wellbeing is in everyone’s interest.

“Together with IDEWE, we have already made major progress as true partners in co-creation. One of the challenges we are currently working on is to further expand the scan’s reach to many more people, so we can help more self-employed people safeguard their own wellbeing and also collect more data with which to produce even more valuable and representative insights. We believe strongly in this project. The self-employed are an important factor in our prosperity and their wellbeing is in everyone’s interest”, concludes Carla.

Did you know? 

• 61% of the self-employed continue working even if their health does not allow it.
• 46% feel a lot of pressure to be accessible,
• and these people are also the least passionate about their work.
• 48% regularly or constantly feel work puts too much pressure on their private lives, 
• although this percentage has dropped in the past three years.
• 86% find their work somewhat or very meaningful.