Meeting your staffing requirements in difficult times. Recruitment and retention of shift and hourly paid employees in the UK and Ireland. This summer, we stopped our regular recordings and produced two compilation episodes from the 50-plus episodes we had recorded.  We called these the “Work Place Wellbeing Podcast” done as a book. However, despite hanging up our microphones, we have decided to put on a special episode to talk about a survey we have done with our customers and a white paper we have published to discuss the findings. The white paper is called “Meeting your staffing requi ..read more

It’s a mark of how far we have come in the wellbeing space that the fear of losing one’s life or a limb doesn’t concern the majority of us at work and that when you ask modern managers about wellbeing in the Workplace, their thoughts often start with mental health issues. So in this chapter, we aren’t going to discuss health and safety because, thankfully, it is well covered elsewhere, and workplaces are safer than ever. So instead, we cover some other areas of physical wellbeing that our guests have discussed. This chapter includes clips from the following podcasts: Danny Clarke, Chartered M ..read more

This is an area where the responsibility of the employer can be debated. However, the impact is huge.  We have discussed the impact on productivity at work and the impact on the individuals concerned. A lot of effort is going into the subject, and it is an area that we believe pays huge dividends for employers that support their staff. This chapter includes clips from the following podcasts: Darren Laverty of Foster Denovo | “Make their money count” Ben Smith, Head of Product, fastP.A.Y.E and Jake Bates, Workplace Wellbeing Specialist, fastP.A.Y.E | The On-Demand Pay space and how the se ..read more

This is a subject which has become increasingly recognized as an area of employer responsibility.  This is a problem that was often swept under the carpet in the past but is now benefiting from a much more open debate as in recent years the full scale of the problem has become clear. Throughout the podcast series, we have discussed the different types of mental health issues, the impact of work on people’s health plus a range of potential solutions.  This chapter includes clips from the following podcasts: Perrine Farque, Keynote Speaker, Author and Founder of Inspired Human | Inclu ..read more

Just like leadership, communications has probably been one of the top 3 business book subjects of all time so we weren’t surprised that it came up regularly with our guests.. No clear trend emerged on the subject throughout our 2 series, other than clear communications and listening to your team help wellbeing.  This chapter includes clips from the following podcasts: Paul Hills, Founder and CEO of Konektis.org | Bringing the body language back to video meetings      (for Youtube version click  here) Andrea Newton, Founder of Confident Conversations | The Art of Conve ..read more

Chapter 6: Roles and Responsibility.  We were constantly surprised by the link between what you could call standard business practice and wellbeing. This is covered in this chapter which looks at how you select your team, the roles you give them, their responsibilities and other working practices.  Tools such as an organization chart and a job description which must be part of management 101 really can have an effect on wellbeing if done properly and this came up time and again. This chapter includes clips from the following podcasts: Carolyn Illman, Hiring Coach and Owner, Hire Po ..read more

Chapter 5: Management System and Process. If you really want to make a success of your strategy, some sort of management system to define and measure success and encourage continuous improvement is a good idea. This chapter discusses ISO 45003 which is the first global management standard covering psychological health and safety in the workplace and some simpler alternatives. This chapter includes clips from the following podcasts: Sheila Lord, Founder and Director, BMR Health and Wellbeing | Using systematic mental health programs to deliver measurable results Dr Bob Nelson, President of Nel ..read more

Why have a wellbeing strategy –  employer Responsibility and return on investment. It was pretty easy to establish that physical wellbeing is covered by health and safety regulations in most countries around the world. But what about more personal issues such as financial wellbeing, personal fitness and mental wellbeing. What is the responsibility of an employer in these areas? It probably won’t surprise you to hear, but our guests had a strong view that employers did have a responsibility to act – especially in mental health issues because work is contributing to a lot of the issues that ..read more

Chapter 3:  Discovery and establishing a wellbeing strategy. Two themes emerged over the course of our podcast on strategy.  They were: Companies didn’t have a strategy. They had free fruit and yoga  The need to do some investigation work during a discovery phase before you settle on a strategy.  Several of our guests discussed the steps needed to establish a strategy which always started with asking colleagues their point of view and finding out what the wellbeing issues were. Once you know what the issues were, coming up with strategies to improve them was relatively ea ..read more

Trust based leadership. leadership come close to the top of the key issues that impact wellbeing, and also that good leaders make for a happy work place and that un happy organsiations nearly always have poor leadership as one of the root causes. Within leadership a key theme emerged from our guests as they consistently identified  trust as probably the element of leadership which has the biggest impact on wellbeing.  This chapter includes clips from the following podcasts: Sir Terry Leahy, Former CEO of Tesco Plc | The impact of company values on employee wellbeing Ben Brearley, Le ..read more