We spend the majority of our week in the workplace and with colleagues. Therefore employers must place workplace well-being high on the agenda.
Happy employees = positive outcomes. In particular, the service they deliver to your client base will always be significantly improved if you have happy employees, client retention increases and your business will grow.
We’re the first to admit that we don’t always get it perfect. Dealing with individuals is a complex process, and we all respond to things in different ways, but what we can say is that we do our absolute best to ensure our colleagues are happy in their roles.
Over the past 12-18 months, we’ve invested significantly in reviewing a number of our processes, with the first being recruitment. Ensuring you have the right people in your business, with the right skills and behaviours is crucial. As the saying goes, you will never fit a square peg into a round hole, and it’s vital that new people coming into the business fit within the overall culture of the team so as not to cause any headaches amongst existing staff.
During our recruitment phase, we get to know potential colleagues in more detail by undertaking personality profiling and getting to know more about their resilience and their strengths. This isn’t about us saying no to individuals who may have mental health challenges but helps us to identify if a) the role is right for them and b) how we can help them develop their resilience and support them to flourish.
We also have a very tight induction process, thanks to working with external individuals such as Natasha McCreesh of Pip to Grow Strong whom we continue to work with on delivering group training and 121 coaching sessions. We operate a first four weeks’ timetable which enables our newbies to get a feel for the business, engage with all colleagues, understand our ways of working, provide relevant training, an overview to our client base and most importantly our culture and expectations.
Alongside this, we provide an internal peer mentoring programme which is undertaken monthly. This is a chance for the individual to discuss challenges and triumphs and get support from their peer to help them progress. More formally, we operate a quarterly appraisal process that enables the individual to stay on track and for any concerns to be resolved quickly and efficiently.
Our formal processes continue to evolve but what it has done is create a culture in which employees step up to enhance their wellbeing and that of their colleagues. An example of this is practice is our Client Services Director, Laura, running Monday Motivational workouts in our meeting room. This gets the team off to a good start for the week ahead. An added benefit is that Laura’s husband Adam is a personal trainer, so guides us on how to enhance these weekly workouts, so the team feel they are continually progressing.
To further support our staff and encourage them in taking care of their health, we offer Vitality Health Insurance which provides various rewards and perks for the team looking after their health and wellbeing. This includes access to physical health support but also a variety of mental health support too. Our partnership with our local chamber also provides a mental health support line if needed.
Our Workplace Wellbeing initiatives recently resulted in Wild PR being awarded the Workplace Wellbeing Award from the British Chambers of Commerce for the Yorkshire & Humber Region (we go against all regional finalists in November at an award ceremony in London)!
While workplace wellbeing is crucial, businesses can only do so much. Employees need to be willing to engage and know when they need to step up themselves, but ensuring we provide them with the tools and support to help them along the way is vital.