We would all agree that the wellbeing of our people has never been more important than it is now. Over the past year we have seen some remarkable support being offered to people by our IIP community. Covid-19 has provided the opportunity for organisations to get closer to the needs of their people and step up the wellbeing resources on offer.

This will provide a great springboard for driving up further improvements designed to strengthen and embed a sustainable wellbeing culture to help us thrive in the ‘new normal’.

A culture of well-being is much more than an “initiative” or programme of staff support.  It should be seen as ‘just we way we do things around here’ and present us with a permanent change in how work is conducted. The ‘We invest in Wellbeing’ Framework provides us with some great pointers about how to embed a wellbeing culture. The framework is really helpful for development purposes as well as providing public acknowledgement through the accreditation route.

Check list to help strengthen and embed a wellbeing culture

• Consider what lessons have been learnt from the Pandemic to take into your 2021 and beyond wellbeing and people strategy. The following article in Personnel Today provides some useful food for thought;
• https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/an-hr-shift-for-2021-improving-employee-life-experience/

• Be clear about the current and emerging wellbeing needs of your people
• Continue to collect relevant, accurate data and information that helps to establish what the most critical physical, mental and social wellbeing needs of your people are
• Take time to survey your staff, run focus group and access any internal health care information that gives you further insights on this
• Don’t forget to consider generational, ethnicity, gender and role differences in terms of wellbeing needs.

• Set and monitor improvement targets based on your analysis of needs and target future resources around these

• Include a clear and prominent reference about the importance of wellbeing in your business strategy. This will help to show that that it is a fully considered and integrated part of your overall approach to business.

• Make sure your leaders ‘walk the talk’ on wellbeing. Your people need to see that there is a genuine commitment from the top to create a sustainable wellbeing culture.
• Senior leaders can send powerful messages by offering personal stories of wellbeing to their people. Consider how best to communicate these.
• Undertake relevant development to equip all people managers with information and understanding about their role in supporting wellbeing
• Consider how leadership style and approach may impact on the wellbeing of your people – encourage and invite upwards feedback
• Build wellbeing into individual ‘check in’s with your people
• All people managers should demonstrate their own healthy behaviours and practices
• Normalise discussions around mental health in your teams. Encourage people to reflect on and share their own approaches to build awareness of different needs

• Apply a wellbeing lens to your employee journey and to all your HR processes and practices
• Make sure that wellbeing is considered at all stages from pre on boarding through to exit interviews
• Integrate wellbeing into all people processes including; performance management, learning and development, reward and recognition, diversity and inclusion, CSR etc.

• Carry out a programme of education for all your people around the issues that matter
• Using the national health day’s calendar can help to schedule specific aspect of health education; https://www.nhsemployers.org/retention-and-staff-experience/health-and-wellbeing/understanding-your-data/calendar-of-national-campaigns/calendar-of-national-health-and-wellbeing-campaigns-table

• Bring together a group of staff who can take on the role of wellbeing champions
• Wellbeing should not be seen as an ‘HR’ initiative although the HR team will have an important role to play. Consider recruiting and training a group of staff who are passionate about wellbeing to help bring energy, ideas and momentum to your wellbeing approach. The following link from RSSB includes some great information about how to go about this;
• https://www.nsar.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/wellbeing-champion-tool.pdf

• Make it easy for people to find and access education and information

–     Create a wellbeing portal where people can easily see and access information and education about wellbeing support and guidance.

• Evaluate the progress you are making with your wellbeing strategy and report back to all stakeholders.
• On the principle of ‘What gets reported on gets done’ you could include a quarterly or 6 monthly report on wellbeing progress, challenges and objectives to all stakeholders.