Wellbeing in the Workplace

Make your employees your number one priority. If you don’t, you’re putting your whole business at risk. Happy employees work harder, are more productive and are more successful. Workplace wellness is about ensuring your staff are constantly motivated in their job roles. Their wellbeing impacts the success of the business.

The People Development Network recently published an article on this very subject. It explains that your employees are what makes your business flourish. You should create a work environment where they can thrive. The suggested ways of maintaining wellness in the workplace are:

Allow experimentation.

Let creativity flow and problem solving skills develop. After all, it’s not the route of getting there but the end result that matters. Giving your staff the responsibility of their own workload and letting them manage their tasks themselves makes their day more satisfying. Satisfied employees are more productive. Without this responsibility, new ideas may never be shared. This could be costing you big-time.

Create Flexibility.

Some staff will become demotivated if they are sat at the same desk day-in day-out. Allow your employees the freedom of working from home, working in different environments or working flexible hours. Giving your staff the control over their time and place of work will make them want to stay working for you for longer.

Keep culture at your core.

Embedding culture in to your business will motivate your employees. Time spent away from desks relaxing and socialising will keep your current staff happy. Not just that, it will make your company desirable when recruiting. Just look at some of the most successful business in the world and you will see that they really do make culture a priority.

Health is a priority.

Encourage your staff to improve their general health and wellbeing. Little things like getting out of the office at lunchtime or providing fresh fruits and snacks are all helping towards improving and maintaining health of your employees.

Continual development.

Keep your staff motivated and engaged with personal development plans. Let them use their creativity in working towards their goals and their passion for their role will show.

If the health and wellbeing of your employees isn’t already on the agenda, it really needs to be. Looking out for staff health means less time taken off work for sicknesses like stress, anxiety and depression. When your employees feel better in themselves they are more motivated, therefore more productive. A win-win situation, surely?

At Embrace-learning, we are passionate about helping to build and develop resilience, health and wellbeing. We want to do this in the workforce and the local community. Our new suite of e-learning courses aims to do just that.

Our commitment doesn’t stop there. Our resilience and wellbeing initiative allows organisations of any size to get involved and help to promote and supply resilience building e-learning to the community. To read more about this or to get involved visit our website here.

If you are interested in resilience, health and well-being training for your workforce, please get in touch on 0161 928 9987.

 Embrace-learning is a UK leading provider of quality e-learning resources to the Health and Social Care sector. Find out more about us on our website www.embrace-learning.com

You can read more of our blog posts here.

Community Resilience and Wellbeing

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change” (Charles Darwin)

A community that is connected can better adapt to change and recover from adversity. This is what makes a community resilient.

As it happens, this is what makes an individual or an organisation resilient. It is intuitively understood that a disconnected community, an alienated individual or an isolated organization will not flourish and indeed may cease to exist when the winds of change blow in. It's not only understood but it's backed up by stacks of academic evidence from the fields of psychology, sociology and other disciplines. It seems the more we learn about resilience, the same principles hold true for people as they do for organisations and communities.

Unforeseen events like natural disasters and climate change can devastate lives and communities. Often the most significant events that happen to us are unforeseen, unplanned

for and unexpected. Even the 'good' events can turn out to be real challenges. You only have to look at the lives of some lottery winners and celebrities to see that resilience isn't just about failure', it's about coping with 'success'. The use of quote marks here is deliberately intended to question what counts as success and failure. That's a discussion for another day, but it's the dynamics of resilience that play out in the lives of individuals, organisations and communities that is fascinating. It is the idea that resilience can be learned and nurtured that is of interest to me. The question is, 'how is that achieved?'

There are some things we know about resilience that applies to people, organisations and communities. Being connected in a positive way. That is, having win/win relationships with others. It's not enough just 'being connected'. Poor connections that result in win/lose relationships is more likely to undermine resilience than bolster it. It almost goes without saying that resilient individuals will go a long way to establishing resilient communities. Individuals that have learned to feel helpless and ineffective will more often than not find others with the same characteristics and outlooks to create the least resilient and most vulnerable communities.

So what do you say to individuals to help build resilience? Well here's a 'starter for 10'.

Look at your own wellbeing and try to be specific about any behaviours that undermine your sense of happiness and wellbeing. Take a look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself a few questions.

You might want to ask yourself:

·         How well connected or how plugged in do I feel to what is going on around me in my neighbourhood, town or city?

·         What is it that I can offer to my community that won't necessarily give me any reward other than feeling good about the fact that I have contributed?

·         What behaviours do I need to change to better look after my mental and physical health?

There is a clear role here for employers to build a more resilient workforce. A disaster recovery plan is now mandatory for any organisation serious about planning for the future. But it is equally important that steps are taken to help support workers to make sure that they have their own personal disaster recovery plan, or something like it.

Bad things will happen and that's a fact. Those that can adapt will survive and flourish. That too is a fact. If you would like to know more about the work we do then please get in touch. Click here to find out more.

Embrace-learning is a UK leading provider of quality e-learning resources to the Health

and Social Care sector. Find out more about us on our website www.embracelearning.

com.

You can read more of our blog posts here.