YWCA Yorkshire is an independent member of the YWCA of Great Britain which was founded in 1855, and is one of the oldest women’s organisations in the world. The YWCA was formed to provide safe hostel accommodation to Florence Nightingales nurses who were travelling from all over the country on their way to the Crimea, and is now a global network of women leading change in over 120 countries worldwide. YWCA Yorkshire has been shortlisted for Health and Wellbeing award at the Investors in People Awards 2022.
Why did you enter the awards?
At YWCA Yorkshire we believe our people are at the heart of everything we do. Our approach and commitment to health and wellbeing focusses on maintaining a healthy, motivated workforce to enable us to support the physical and emotional demands of the valuable work that they do. Therefore, when we were invited to apply for the award by our IIP account manager, choosing the Health & Wellbeing Category was an easy choice for us.
What was your key point of your entry?
As a charity, budgets are often tight and we are constantly seeking innovative ways to support health and wellbeing in collaboration with our staff. This ensures that they feel listened to and our initiatives contribute towards a targeted approach which supports their needs in the following areas:
- Physical
- Mental/Emotional
- Financial
- Social
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As a women’s organisation with a predominantly female workforce, we recognised the need for flexible working and implemented a flexi-scheme which allows staff a greater work/life balance to enable them to manage the demands of work and family life. This combined with our hybrid working options implemented during the pandemic has given staff greater choice and control over their working hours.
Previous to, and during the pandemic, our well-established wellbeing plans have been used to target support to individual circumstances ensuring that we are also able to meet needs on an individual basis so that our people feel heard and able to work in way that is supportive to them and meets their needs.
100% of our staff are given the opportunity to have their own WRAP Plan (Wellness Recovery Action Plan) which focusses on resilience and looking at their own coping mechanisms for dealing with mental health issues. These are just some of the examples from our vast basket of wellbeing tools that our staff are able to access.
The highlight of our entry for us is that, within our organisation, health and wellbeing is much more than just a box to be ticked and has been for many years. It is integral to everything that we do and embedded in our ongoing culture of support. It is driven by our values and reflected in our whole ethos, including the way that we communicate and consult with our staff. It’s reflected in our policy making decisions where we strive to write and review policy with good staff in mind, rather than create punitive policies that seek to control. We regularly review our decision making and place high importance on involving our people in decisions that affect them. This collaborative approach, together with the high levels of support offered and sense of community, enables us to maintain extremely positive levels of engagement throughout the organisation.
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What would it mean to you to win?
We never rest on our laurels! We recognise the importance of, and actively seek, new opportunities to develop our Health & Wellbeing Strategy, embracing change and ensuring that we remain responsive to the needs of our people. Our ongoing commitment to this means that to receive the award would be recognition of the positive culture, created by our people, for our people and we would be absolutely over the moon!
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Our Awards Are Back!
We are so excited to be back hosting The Investors in People Awards 2022 in person. It’s been too long!
Find out about all the other finalists and book your tickets for the evening today!