Boost Your Team Culture To Create Wellbeing Wealth

Now that we are out the other side of the pandemic, rebuilding our workplaces in a new space– how is your company wellbeing looking?

It was one thing to create a strong team culture when everyone was in one office – company wellbeing sessions, yoga classes and socials were part of making a company a great place to work.

But those are not enough alone to build a strong company culture with wellbeing at the heart.

It’s essential to promote positive mental health and well-being at work by creating a safe, open space where people feel valued and connected.

Where can you start to ensure your workplace promotes great wellbeing and is a happy, health place to work?

Look at your Ways of Working

Creating a culture of well-being starts with looking at how the working patterns are and if they are really supporting a healthy workplace. Often businesses fall into toxic work practices when they are under pressure, have big deadlines or heavy client expectations. These sometimes stick and become ingrained into the way the business works. It’s worthwhile re-examining these every 6 months to see if they are supporting or damaging your team’s wellbeing.

What are the working hours and how often do people cross them? Is it the norm for people to work late, start early or work on weekends and where does this expectation come from? What are the leaders modelling here?

What boundaries are in place to support people to have a health work life blend? Are people encouraged to take holidays? Are wellbeing days in place to allow people space if they aren’t feeling themselves?

Are there enough resources in the business to support teams when someone is off sick?

Get to know your people

When we understand the individual, everyone feels seen. There is no one size fits all when it comes to wellbeing- everyone has different needs at different times. That can feel overwhelming for leaders and managers but trust me it’s not- because if you take a little bit of time to get to know your people, it’ll be easy to see what they need.

How can you do this?

Take time to check in – either in structured 1-1s or informal chats. Ask how they are (inside and outside of work).

Make it fun – you can do walk and talks to get out of the office and into nature

Make space for people to talk – create a space in communal areas where people can come and talk to senior execs or leaders on a regular basis – like a culture check in.

Make space for vulnerability

When people feel comfortable to share their vulnerability, their struggles and their wins, they feel safe and safety promotes confidence. And when your team feel confident and secure, they excel in their work!

You can normalise sharing by making check ins a regular part of team and company meetings and by regularly asking the question “how are you feeling?”

Open up – modelling vulnerability and sharing your own challenges is the most powerful way to create a healthy culture.

Offer anonymous spaces for people to share thoughts, ideas and challenges and be ready to listen and take action! There are many ways you can do this including online polls and suggestion boxes.

Create connection

With new flexible ways of working it’s important to keep active connection points in the business so that staff feel engaged and motivated. Feeling connected in one of the top reasons people feel well in their workplace so how can you build strong connection when people are working to their own rhythms?

Create some non-negotiable connection points - a weekly team catch up, bi monthly company meeting, in person days – whatever it looks like, make sure they happen consistently and that people know why they are in place.

Make the connection meaningful – long meetings with no purpose will disengage your team fast! Make the connections fun, short and meaningful. Ask a few key questions, get people to share and then let people chat.

Streamline it- do you have 6 different platforms where people work together so that connecting can feel overwhelming? Streamline connectivity and make sure there is a mix of online and in person so that everyone’s needs and lifestyles are met.

Make it social

Wellbeing doesn’t have to be serious and stress-related, it can be fun! When you have understood what your people want, offer a variety of ways for them to come together and have fun, engage, learn and make a positive impact.

Offer wellbeing sessions where people can learn about themselves and understand their and their team’s stress responses better so they can work together and communicate powerfully.

Build social time into the company calendar- weekly events, quarterly socials – this can be changed up every quarter so it appeals to different people with different interests

Make a difference in the community by offering ‘be good, do good’ sessions where people can do volunteering together, clean up a public area or brainstorm a new idea that can make a difference in your local community.

No matter what your company dynamic looks like now – in the office, working remotely, collaborating in co-working spaces or a mix! It’s always possible to create that great culture when you take some intentional, positive steps towards healthy, happy working.

If you want more information on where to start with creating a positive team culture or setting up wellbeing sessions, get in touch!

About me

I’m Laila, an approachable but candid workplace wellbeing expert, certified coach and mindfulness trainer. I help well-intentioned but time poor business leaders and HR professionals to support their employee's mental health and create happy, healthy and well-thy workplaces.

Previously a business savvy Events Director and COO, I’ve now transferred my 18 years of corporate experience to showing companies how to convert employee happiness into tangible business results.

I work with high-achieving and committed managers who want to support their own wellbeing, and that of their team members. And I’ve provided practical yet transformational solutions that have helped hundreds of professionals to beat stress and manage their mental health, from public sector organisations like the NHS and Universities, to multinational corporates like Accenture and Hyatt.

I wholeheartedly believe that businesses need to ‘be’ well not just ‘do’ well. And it starts with the people at the heart of every organisation.

www.alifemoremindful.com

[email protected]

Written by Laila Datoo

Boost Your Team Culture To Create Wellbeing Wealth – Whatever Your Company Looks Like!