Wellbeing in the Workplace

Avoid | Alter | Accept | Adapt

Who could not agree and aspire to a well and happy workforce who are even more engaged, and perform their roles contentedly and commendably?
 
Our conscientious and dedicated SWIFT Central Team believe in wellbeing in their working practices in our support and work with our partnership and in our professional development offer to schools.
 
Recently, to further this practical awareness, the Team engaged in a Wellbeing in the Workplace training session led by ACAS. You will certainly have your own wellbeing ways, but as positive reinforcement, we would like to share some of our insights with you now.

To start with the well – wellbeing bit, we considered some of the plus points across our team:

• Our interesting roles
• Scope for autonomy
• Scope for role development
• Supportive/responsive working environment
• Positive praise
• Value of coming together for team days
• Caring team

 
In those super-busy, super over-loaded times when our wellbeing equilibrium becomes imbalanced and stress starts to take over – be it from a lack of clarity of instructions, a lack of support, or perhaps other blockages, it is important to find tangible solutions.
 
Wellbeing needs to be a cyclical conversation to reaffirm the good intentions with a shared goal across teams and organisations.
 
Stress is a state, not a condition and be aware it manifests itself in cortisol, biological and physiological reactions. Stress to a point can be a driving force when deployed reasonably and practicably. However, prolonged over-stretched long-term stress can lead to low morale, illness and poor output. 

So how do we assess what is going well and what could be better, and ultimately boost our wellbeing in the workplace?
 
In a workplace situation, your team can attune to spying some of the stressful warning signs. Benefit from knowing your colleagues and how they communicate. Be it changes in their body language and/or voice. Remember colleagues have private lives as well as their working life that might be impacting on their daily working life.
 
In an enlightened effort to understand how to mitigate stress (rather than seek unrealistically to eliminate it entirely) as a Team we considered the following as some helpful starters to:
 

• Understand our role.
• Consider a timely response rate to managing emails (judge if an immediate response is required).
• Use your diary to plan time for pieces of work.
• Clarify when a piece of work needs to be completed (genuinely).
• Take screen breaks.
• Go for a lunchtime walk.
• Say no to extras or request (reasonably!)
• Consider how you praise team members – be specific and purposeful.
• Write down three positives every day.
• Evolve your coping mechanisms.
• Keep motivated and remember why you enjoy your role!

Managing workload is one of the essentials to managing stressful situations.

Rationalise rather than catastrophise and understand any underlying issues that might be causing stress. 
Change internal and external expectations.

Think about what can be controlled, avoid duplication and unnecessary work, learn how to prioritise and be pragmatic with your diary.
 
Foster trusting relationships - so that whether you are the Team Leader or the employee, you can engage in honest and open conversations, if and when, things do not go quite right on occasion.
Control, influence and understand.
 
This is all well and good you might be thinking, but how can you measure the success of wellbeing strategies?

Obviously, this is where instincts can come into play. From knowing your team and their work output, attendance at work and attitude to work.
 
But you could also engage in a quarterly “Pulse” Survey - as the name suggests to measure the rhythm of the team.
Many schools already undertake their own regular Wellbeing Surveys
Build on your wellbeing work in your workplace, by assigning a Wellbeing Champion /First Aider and create your own Wellbeing Charter as your statement of intent. 

We wish you well in keeping wellbeing a focus in your team /organisation.
Report by Jude Owens, SWIFT Executive Assistant 

THE “5 WAYS TO WELLBEING”