Having delivered wellbeing programmes for both SME’s and International Organisations it’s always interesting to see how each company takes a different approach to implementing a wellbeing programme.  Some are executed perfectly while others completely miss the mark.   Having made my own fair share of mistakes I have learnt a lot about wellbeing and how to really make it work.  In this blog I want to provide you with some insights and my top tips one creating an engaging and inspiring wellbeing programme.

1. Ask the people what they want!  (Granted, some will say more money, free holidays & 2 hour working days!) But you’ll likely find many will want things like better communication, team building sessions, more support, autonomy etc.

2. Find the freebies! My first port or call with any organisation is to identify what free stuff can they implement?  Challenges, networking groups, clubs, newsletters etc

3. What’s the theme? Many organisations are choosing to go down the “Building Resilience” route as this covers a large spectrum of both physical and mental wellbeing. At UK Wellbeing Coach this is something we have seen great success with.

4. Where to start?  Many wellbeing programme miss the mark be targeting lower tier employees first.  For me Wellbeing must be a top down approach.  If Directors, Managers and don’t appreciate the business case the staff won’t feel the benefit.

5. Plan well ahead! Those organisations looking to really make a difference need to realise it’s a long process.  I recommend planning at least 12 months in advanced. Personally I use the 8×6 Principle to plan both individual and organisational programmes.

6. Build your network. The responsibility of wellbeing often gets left to HR teams and becomes a burden on an already busy department.  Utilise the people within your organisation by creating a Wellbeing Champions Network.

7. Don’t blow your budget. If you are fortunate enough to find yourself with a budget for wellbeing please don’t get over excited and spend it all on a fancy piece of tech or over priced speaker.  Both are lovely to have but ultimately you need to ask yourself “in 6 months time how will the team feel about wellbeing?”

“will they still be using this app?”

“will they remember more than 10% of what that speaker said?”

8. Review the success.  Employee engagement surveys are common practice.  These often give us some good information on how staff feel about the organisation and the programmes delivered.

Hopefully this has given you some food for thought and a bit of an insight into implementing a wellbeing programme.

Engage, Inspire & Create Positive Change – UK Wellbeing Coach