This month we launch our latest training package “Creating a Culture of Wellbeing in Your Workplace..”
We are confident this training can change and improve wellbeing in your workplace and are passionate about its impact.
Workplace wellbeing is high profile these days. The recent Work & Health report from Sheffield Public Health suggested mental health challenges cost the Sheffield economy £420 million in 2018 due to absence or impact on productivity.
But we’d also like to positively say that changes in working culture which aid wellbeing will improve your bottom line, increase your productivity and enable you to make the most of the wonderful people who work with you.
Here are four reasons why we think this seminar will make a difference to you and why it’s worth the investment we are asking.
We promote psychological safety which has proven impact.
The concept of psychological safety came to our attention after reading an article by Charles Duhigg in the New York Times 2016. In it he shared the results of Google’s Project Aristotle which studied 180 high functioning teams at the company and found that “psychological safety was by far the most important” reason for this team success.
The concepts of psychological safety, proposed by Amy Edmondson in her book “The Fearless Organisation” have been crucial to our learning.
But it’s not just Google where these ideas have had a proven impact. Baer/Frese took this idea and analysed increased company performance with 47 mid-sized German companies. They found direct links between innovation, psychological safety and increased performance. Then Taiwan Huang/Jiang also found similar links in 245 members of 60 R&D teams in Taiwan.
Changing culture is a key part of personal wellbeing
Secondly we believe changing culture is vitally important in promoting personal wellbeing. Undoubtedly many companies and organisations in the region and in the UK support individuals in their wellbeing. However, unless we address the impact of culture in our wellbeing we only address half the story.
How do we deal with workplaces where lunch breaks are optional and employees learn that working long hours gets them recognition? What are company guidelines on replying to emails received from the boss at 11pm at night? What impact do climates on (unspoken) fear and relentless deadlines have on the people who work in organisations?
This training asks organisations to look at the cultures they have encouraged. Often this will be positive but sometimes challenges will be discovered that need to be address.
Kwast breaks culture down into four areas:
What is real? (Worldview)
What is true? (Beliefs)
What is good or best? (Values)
What is done? (Behaviour)
We believe a serious look at these four areas and plans to promote wellbeing and good practice in each area will have a profound impact on workplaces.
Innovation is the by-product of healthy wellbeing
In her seminal 2011 article, Nancy Adler looks at the world and our economy in the midst of the incredible change taking place. She concludes “Twenty-first century society yearns for a leadership of possibility, a leadership based more on hope, aspiration, innovation and beauty than on the replication of historical patterns of constrained pragmatism.”
Today we stand on the verge of opportunities and changes many thought impossible. Rapid technological change, incredible discovery and global markets give us the opportunity to imagine a future and then work back to create it as a possibility. But this is only possible with healthy, free employees able to express that creativity without fear of their jobs and without the burden of poor mental health.
In the area of education we’ve begun to see what’s possible as teachers attend wellbeing days to explore our approach to wellbeing and find themselves unlocked to new ideas and new imagination. We are thrilled that 78% of attendees rate our days 5/5 and the remainder at 4/5. We are also thrilled that 100% of those who attend say they’d recommend the day to colleagues.
We hope that central to this positive response is a positivity to the benefits of wellbeing and the opportunities it provides. Happy and healthy employees exploring their potential and enabled to be the people they were employed to be. The potential is endless.
New practices are emerging
We are thrilled to be working in wellbeing at a time when many employers are experimenting with new ideas and new practice. The rethinking of the work-life equation (e.g. Susan Dominus 2016) provides opportunities.
How can we create genuinely flexible and open environments for work? We explore some contemporary ideas and experiments around areas such as sleep, desks and working hours to genuinely expose participants to new ideas and new imagination. Not all these practices may be for you but we are convinced exploring them will only be beneficial for business and their employees wellbeing.
We’d like to encourage you to join in with our Creating Cultures training…
The seminar takes place on 23 September at the Adelphi Rooms, Crucible Theatre. Places are limited and are £150 per person. This price includes the seminar, free resources and a 1-2-1 consultation with a member of the Space to Breathe team.
For more info contact us on andy@spacetobreathe.eu or book in using the button below