Employer branding has made the cut on the list of strategic business priorities for many…
Creating an open culture where everyone feels comfortable talking about wellbeing is a real challenge. But it doesn’t have to be.
A summary of the blog
- Survey your team to gather feedback and invite them to shape the organisation’s policies around mental health and wellbeing communication.
- Create a check-in culture where people can openly talk and share ideas – management included.
- Upskill managers to help them understand their role in wellbeing and make them accountable for it.
- Encourage employees to partake in your wellbeing programme and give them the time to do so.
- Make wellbeing tasks and activities visible around common areas in the workplace.
Chances are you’re already hugely aware of how important it is to prioritise wellbeing at work.
However, there’s a difference between managing wellbeing and being demonstrably communicative about it, and in today’s culture, people want their leaders to do both.
Here are five ways to boost wellbeing communications and show mental health is top of your agenda.
Ways to improve internal communications on wellbeing
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Keep asking
Wellness topics and needs evolve regularly and can often be triggered by current events, so look at when you last reassessed or evaluated the wellbeing needs of your colleagues.
Regularly survey them, ask what they need, and invite them to shape the organisation’s policies around mental health and wellbeing. Not only will this give you valuable insight, but will demonstrate your ongoing commitment to wellbeing communication.
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Create a check-in culture
Encourage leaders to regularly check in with their direct reports, make it crystal-clear that there will never be repercussions for honest conversations, and also enable peer-to-peer support so colleagues know that they always have someone to talk to. Conversation starters and training can really help here.
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Upskill your managers
When colleagues feel that they can trust and confide in their managers, they feel less anxious, according to a study by Personnel Today, and the importance of managers in setting a positive culture cannot be underestimated. So, make sure your managers understand they can make a difference in wellbeing communication.
Give them clear guidance in knowing the support your company offers and what to do if somebody is struggling. Finally, incorporate wellbeing into management accountability.
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Put your name on the dotted line
Your wellbeing programme will be wasted if your employees don’t feel they can put into practice the services you’ve provided.
Regularly promote your wellbeing programme and give them clear and supported permission to take time to use them. For example, having defined opportunities during the day to do those yoga sessions, or the autonomy to leave the office early on a case-by-case basis.
Ask for contributions to a work manifesto which puts agreed actions in writing, sign it by your leadership team, and make it highly visible, on and offline.
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Find a sticky place
No, not the countertop where the squash lives, but the places where people naturally gravitate to in your organisation.
It might be the kitchen in winter or an outside spot during the warmer months. Use these to your advantage and deliver your wellbeing initiatives there. From talks and activities, maximise the impact and visibility, demonstrate your commitment, and encourage those informal discussions.
Let us help you make wellbeing communications a priority
Thinking about how to communicate and support the wellbeing of your employees?
Get in touch with Blair Meyler to talk it over and see how we could help, blair.meyler@mccannsynergy.com.
