IIP Awards Winner 21 – GRAHAM: The Health & Wellbeing Award (Over 1000 employees)

Written by Investors In People

IIP Awards Winner 21 – GRAHAM: The Health & Wellbeing Award (Over 1000 employees)

Michael Smyth, HR Director

Health and wellbeing are one of, if not the most, important things an organisation must focus on when managing their people. Happy people produce better work!

We recognise the employers that are going above and beyond, not only making wellbeing an important initiative but putting wellbeing at the core of what the organisation stands for.

This year’s winners were GRAHAM, and we caught up with them to ask them a few questions on their win and how it will drive them forward in 2022.

Why do you think you won the award, and how did you exceed the judges’ expectations?

Our approach to employee wellbeing focuses on our people as individuals. Our People Strategy recognises that business and personal performance is driven by employee engagement, influencing how we do things at GRAHAM.  

Our Whole Person approach to wellbeing recognises that our people make us unique – they are social beings, not robots, so our wellbeing programmes focus on three distinct but interconnected areas: physical, mental, and social wellbeing. Programmes designed to deliver results in one area will automatically produce parallel benefits in the others.

Most importantly, we ask our employees for their feedback through surveys and forums. We ensure that our well-being initiatives align with what employees need with information from our people system tools, research, and benchmarking.

With this in mind, the Wellbeing Team design delivers and review our wellbeing programmes, providing an agile approach, adapting to changing needs and evolving our offerings to ensure they are relevant, timely, and give employees the right support when they need it most.

The pandemic put our approach to the test. Still, the Wellbeing Team created programmes based on meeting immediate employee needs, for example, practical support and communication to reduce isolation when working from home, evolving into more nuanced programmes, for example, to help managers and staff cope with change and uncertainty.  These programmes included:

  • Home Working practical support & communication tips to reduce isolation
  • Resilience to Brilliance helps employees understand & deal with enforced change incl. a parallel physical support/exercise programme
  • Manager training to move our CONNECT development programme onto a virtual platform
  • Managing in a Time of Change equips managers to understand/avoid the pitfalls of virtual management, e.g. communication, performance & ensuring equality
  • In particular, Control the Controllables and ReCalibrate help employees to reset their physical & mental wellbeing following a year of uncertainty

In summary, we have the drive, innovation and understanding of wellbeing to make a difference. We continually develop and improve our wellbeing approach, ensuring our people, other organisations and the wider society can reap the rewards of wellness culture. Proving GRAHAM is a great place to work – where our employees engage, know their voice is heard, and are making a lasting impact.

The winning moment. Where were you? Who was there? What was the reaction?

We were all watching online as we were working from home – it was great to see all the worthy winners in the different categories and read the messages of congratulations in the chatbox.

How do you and your people feel about winning the award?

We are extremely proud to win this award for the second time. We are delighted to be recognised internationally and across all industries as a business that supports its employees’ health and wellbeing with outstanding initiatives.

We know our organisation’s success is founded on the excellence of our people, and we endeavour to create an inclusive culture where everyone feels valued as an individual, with their wellbeing as important to us as it is to them.

Who would you like to thank?

All our employees who provide excellent feedback and suggestions to improve our wellbeing support continually, and a special thank you to our external partners. The latter help us deliver our programmes throughout the year.

What impact will winning this award have on your organisation?

Winning this award confirms that we continue to develop new and unique wellbeing initiatives, but we don’t want to rest on our laurels. We want to maintain the high levels of employee engagement to drive our Wellbeing Strategy forward, ensuring we are continually evolving and taking innovative steps to lift wellbeing to another level.

What would they be if you could pass your secrets to success onto future entrants in your category?

We believe our wellbeing strategy and programmes are a model that will benefit other organisations and society. So, listen to your people and get them involved in developing your wellbeing approach. Find out what other companies are doing – wellbeing is not a competition but rather a light to be shared.

Quote from Michael Smyth, HR Director:

“Over the past year, humanity has faced unprecedented challenges, particularly in relation to the pandemic. To make a meaningful difference, we knew that we needed to fully understand the challenges our employees and their families were experiencing and concentrate on a three-pronged approach: physical, mental, and social well-being.

“We made a concerted effort to listen and involve employees in the design and implementation of our award-winning initiatives, as well as employing professional health and wellbeing experts, all to ensure we provided valuable support.

“The outcome of this collaborative design and implementation resulted in 90% of employees stating that the initiatives were ‘relevant, supportive and reduced anxiety’, and like everything, we saw a marked positive knock-on effect on our business’ overall performance.

Continuously striving to improve, GRAHAM has invested in the recruitment of a full-time Wellbeing Manager to embed health and wellbeing into the daily operation of the business and focus on tackling poor mental wellbeing, which is prevalent in society and the construction industry in particular.”

How can you become the best organisation you can be? 

Most of our winners are Investors in People Accredited, which means they hold one of our prestigious accreditations; which will be in wellbeingpeople management or apprentices

Their commitment to continuous improvement ensures they’re always improving work for their people and have a better chance of winning one of our awards. 

About Investors in People

Investors in People have been working with a huge range of big and small organisations from Public Sectors, SMEs, Charities, PLCs and anything in between for over 30 years. We have accredited more than 50,000 organisations and our  accreditation is recognised in 66 countries around the world, making it the global benchmark when it comes to people management. So we know we speak your language and can offer the specific kind of support and guidance your organisation needs.

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14th Nov 2023 | Old Billingsgate, London

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