Implementing an Employee-Driven Wellness Mantra

Dr. Tracey Leghorn, Chief Human Resources and H&S Officer, SUEZ UK

Dr. Tracey Leghorn, Chief Human Resources and H&S Officer, SUEZ UK

Could you please share some thoughts on employee wellness practices that can be adopted by organisations to achieve the best possible outcome?

A productive workforce requires a healthy work culture that places equal importance on the physical and mental wellbeing of its employees. Providing adequate wellness solutions help reduce stress, anxiety, and burnout, increase job satisfaction, and ultimately enhance the organisation’s overall performance. Hence, the emphasis should be placed on how to design the best wellness strategy for your employees. An effective method can be letting the employees draft their wellness strategy. Our experience at SUEZ proves that wellness initiatives and strategies work better when it is custom designed by the employees themselves.

For example, our employees created the wellness charter in 2019, which consisted of eight domains of wellbeing. Inclusion and diversity formed the key aspects of the charter as they contributed greatly to the holistic wellbeing of our people. The other domains of wellbeing included mental, social, financial, and work environment. The program and the initiatives have been extremely beneficial to our employees’ comprehensive wellness. It also helped build momentum in the business by delivering on the ideas generated by our own people.

How do you think the COVID-19 pandemic and the remote work culture have impacted the employee wellness landscape?

From my experience, individuals can cope with any crisis for a short while, but it can possibly lead to mental health disorders later in their life. Loneliness and social isolation can trigger a serious mental illness that adversely impacts the quality of life in the long run. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, radical changes accompanied the global work environment that continued to overwhelm the employee demographic. Social distancing and self-isolation resulted in reduced access to friends, family, and other social support systems, leading to severe anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues in people. The hybrid working mode exacerbated loneliness and isolation among the employees. Consequently, COVID-19 accelerated many organisations to create agendas around the physical and mental wellbeing of their employees. Even at SUEZ, proper attention was given to the employee concerns, which initiated mental health awareness and resilience training that greatly benefited our people. Recognising the gravity of the situation, proactive wellbeing measures were launched that focused on mind-body resilience. We had also tried connecting and engaging with our employees who worked from their homes during the lockdown.

“Employees and businesses thrive when the former is provided with an enriched employee experience that supports their careers through wellness, inclusion, and continuous learning”

The pandemic made us realise it is equally important to upskill the managers to effectively manage, support, and lead the remote workers.

While companies have adjusted to the new ways of working, what are some of the future HR trends to look out for? What kind of solutions would you recommend to your peers?

I believe employees and businesses thrive when the former is provided with an enriched employee experience that supports their careers through wellness, inclusion, and continuous learning. This leads to the employees contributing to the society and environment at both micro and macro level. To achieve this target, we have employed the Triple bottom line approach, which focuses on people, planet, and profit, in that order.

Our belief is that if we provide a positive employee experience for our people, they will reciprocate the favour to the customers and the planet in general, which in turn, will generate the profit that makes us a financially viable organisation that can thrive and grow and then provide more jobs. We are entering into the second year of this approach, and the evidence demonstrates that prioritising people, followed by the planet, and then profit makes the business more profitable.

Although the agenda around wellness is a matter of topic, SUEZ also gives equal importance to Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) agenda in the sustainable development and social value space. We intend to fight the climate crisis, protect natural capital, and develop human capital, which we consider crucial for society.

What would be your words of wisdom to the readers of this article?

For any wellbeing and wellness agenda, I believe, it’s crucial to start small and with what your people say they need to thrive. Successful endeavors often achieve the ultimate aim by dreaming big and starting small. By providing a manageable solid foundation through one or two initial initiatives done well, you can go on to build a programme which is owned and driven by your people. Employee driven programmes certainly gain the most momentum and with Board and senior leadership support, as is the case at SUEZ, they evolve into wide-spread programmes that can change the ‘employee experience’, and indeed, the very culture of the organisation, for the better.