6 Employee Well-being Strategies For Organizations
In this HR Leaders episode, experts from AECOM, The Walt Disney Company, Lyra, Concentrix, BGIS, and Coca-Cola Europacific Partners discuss the importance of mental health in the workplace. They explore how adopting compassionate strategies can enhance employee resilience, productivity, and retention while fostering a supportive and empathetic corporate culture.
Join us in the recent HR Leaders episode, which highlighted the importance of mental health in the workplace, focusing on how organizations can provide compassionate support to foster employee resilience and create a thriving corporate culture.
Discover more about building a future where the workplace is a sanctuary for holistic health by watching the full panel discussion.
🎓 What you will learn:
Adopting compassionate mental health strategies in the workplace
Addressing diverse mental health needs with comprehensive support
Enhancing productivity and retention through supportive environments
Fostering engagement and resilience with empathy in corporate culture
Aligning employer actions with employee perceptions for improved well-being
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Chris Rainey 0:07
Everyone, good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening, depending where you're tuning in from. My name is Chris Rainey, co founder here at HR leaders. And I'll be your host for today's live panel discussion, where we're gonna be talking about how to empower your workforce, with strategies that promote employee wellbeing and resilience. But that being said, Today, I have the amazing privilege of taking a backseat as a moderator. So we're gonna hand it over to our good friend that many of you know, we've been on many of these sessions before, Bernie Knobbe who's a Senior Vice President of Global benefits and well-being at AECOM, how are you, my friend?
Bernie Knobbe 0:40
I'm good, Chris, thank you so much. And welcome to everyone that's on the call. I've had the privilege, honor and really just fortunate opportunity to be a part of HR events sponsored here in the past. And we've got a great panel today, and you're not here to hear from me, you're here to hear from them, as you've heard from me before, and I'll certainly comment if necessary. But this is really about the sharing of stories and hopefully providing some aha moments, as I call them, you know, as you walk away today. So with that, I'm gonna go ahead and turn it over to the panelists and introduce them and I'm going to do it just by who I see on my, on my camera and screen here. So, Nadine, you're first, so go ahead.
Nadine Hoffmann 1:20
Okay. All right. Thank you so much for having me here today. My name is Nadine. I'm based in Germany, and I am leading wellbeing and workplace for Coca Cola Europacific Partners.
Bernie Knobbe 1:33
Great, welcome. Thank you for joining today, Pascal.
Pascale Thomas 1:36
Hello, everyone. My name is Pascal Thomas, and I'm based in the US. I'm the Vice President of Employee Benefits and well-being for the Walt Disney Company.
Bernie Knobbe 1:47
Refer to them. Okay, Dana, you're next.
Dana Hurst 1:38
Hi. Yes.
Thank you for having me. I'm Dana Hurst. I am the director of wellness for BGIS we are a global facilities management organization. And I'm based in Toronto, Canada.
Bernie Knobbe 2:03
This truly is global well being love that okay, and Bahar, I love your logo there in the corner. So I'll turn it over to you.
Bahar Ozkan 2:10
Thank you. Hi, Bernie. Thank you for having me. My name is Bahar Ozkan, I look after global well-being for concentrics for six regions, 70 countries, and I am based out of Miami, Florida.
Bernie Knobbe 2:21
And last but certainly not least. Hi, Althea. Good morning.
Alethea Varra 2:24
Hi, good morning. Bernie. Great to see you, Alethea Varra, I'm SVP over clinical care here at Lyra health, and I'm based here in the US.
Bernie Knobbe 2:33
Wonderful wonder if you painted any of those in the background? Those are great. Anyway. Okay, so we're gonna go ahead and get started. And actually, I didn't do this on purpose sort of worked out? Well. Althea, you're gonna get the first question here. So as you think about holistic approaches around well being what have you done within your organization to help employees adapt to some of those mental health and as we call it emotional well being challenges that you're that you're facing today, and that you know, your employees and dependents are facing as well? Yeah,
Alethea Varra 3:01
I think we have approached us in a couple of ways. The first way is just to make sure that it's everything is very simple to make sure that we're reducing the number of transitions, reducing the number of barriers, you know, we have found that anytime you have to transfer somebody from one service to another, or make a referral from one provider to another, or even just redirect them to a different website, you lose an amazing people, a number of people in that transition. And so making sure that there's no wrong door that they can get to what they need, the very first time is incredibly important, and making sure that whatever that service is that they can get the full spectrum of care needs met. And so that may mean just more preventative meets, say they are interested in something like mindfulness, or they're interested in working on their sleep or something like that. It may mean coaching just to improve their performance or their relationships, and maybe therapy or meds are we also made sure that we can really address those complex care needs things like substance use disorders, or eating disorders or trauma. These are all pieces that, you know, everybody comes to us with very different needs. And they don't always know where the exactly the right place. So we want to make sure that we take all the work off of their hands, that there's no wrong front door they just landed with us will help shepherd them to the right level of care, but also the right provider, we have a amazingly cool AI matching tool that we use that that will help them to get to the provider that is going to be most effective for them as an individual. And really, when it comes down to it, we just want to make sure again, that we do all the work that they don't have to make more than one phone call and that they get the right care that they need the very first time
Bernie Knobbe 4:50
I like that one call. It's very much about the employee, right let's make this a good experience. Because that's really what we're here what we're here to do, Nadine, how about yourself? What Have you seen in relation to this aspect of well being?
Nadine Hoffmann 5:04
Yeah, I think I can echo what Althea has said, and especially in terms of communicating about the offerings. So we've constructed our communication around moments that matter, which we call it and give them people really practical life examples in which they could get support from all of our services. Because sometimes, people just can't imagine how far and how broad and holistic the services are. So, of course, with our EAP provider, we do give, provide life coaching, counseling, and also long term therapy. What has worked really, really well for us as our well being First Aiders network, so they did have more than 5000 conversations last year with our employees. And we can actually see from the data that we have internally, that our employees prefer to talk to someone internally, especially when it comes to work related issues, which is a little bit different when it comes to kind of private issues. So this network of our well being First Aiders really helps to shape the culture around mental health and to reduce stigma. They're having very, they're very present in the countries, they're having very regular experience exchanges. And yet, through that, we have a train the trainer concept. So that means we're really able to adapt everything to the local culture, and across the globe, which has been very much appreciated, because mental health is something very different than Papua New Guinea than it is in Europe. And another thing that has worked really well for us is we used events, where employees would go through a wellbeing assessment, and it would give them a specific result. And then we use that result to get people directly into life coaching or counseling if needed, because at that moment, they were very open to, you know, receive some kind of support and, and these things, and that worked really well.
Bernie Knobbe 7:18
Yeah, that's a little bit like our mental health allies program last year, where you have local people that have gone through some sort of training, that's great. And the moments that matter is really good. We call them hashtag well being wellness by like yours better, is that trademarked? Or can I use that in the future? Because that's really good. moments that matter. Dan, I saw you shaking your head a little bit. Do you have anything you wanted to say?
Dana Hurst 7:39
I mean, I think what the two have covered it, it really hits home, in that, you know, really looking at things holistically is where it's at and looking at your diverse workforces? I think lots of the panelists are global here. And so it puts an extra layer or an extra challenge in there. But I think they covered it really well.
Bernie Knobbe 8:01
Hey, Bahar, Pascale, anything else you want to add?
Bahar Ozkan 8:05
Yeah, I'm happy to. So we are heavily focusing on also that data analytics and voice of employees and collaborating with different departments in order to correlate the information of well being but some other metrics, it could be operational, maybe performance related, ate any kind of HR data, and creating some heat mapping in order to identify the early indicators to take the proper action. So I would definitely agree what all speakers actually said here. And I echo and also commenting on the importance of maybe early indicators, every company have tons of data, which is very valuable, just be something don't know what to look at how to look at. So just wanted to add this data point of view to use that as a kind of indicator as a heatmapping. Moving forward.
Pascale Thomas 8:52
I agree with what all the panelists have said. And so the one thing that I would add is the importance of making sure that, at least on the employer side, that when we're going out to the participants, that we are doing it in a way that resonates uniquely to them. You know, as the panelists have said, mental health is not a one size fits all. And so leveraging the unparalleled power of storytelling, we talked about moments that matter, but it's also around making sure that people understand how to approach this subject in a way that resonates uniquely to them. And so often we get mired into the linguistics around, you know, clinical terms, etc. And so it's really important for folks to realize that, you know, individuals who, who are in those conditions, particularly around mental health often don't even recognize the sign. And so giving them a sense for being able to address those in everyday terms, like, you know, I'm just feeling not so well, right. You know, I could use some additional help. And that's what the type of things that we've done I'm here is really leveraging storytelling to ensure that folks can resonate with the approach. Yeah, and
Dana Hurst 10:06
Pascal on that story, Pele note, I'm going to jump on that train, because that's one thing that we found within our organization that has worked so well, that has been so successful in breaking down the stigma of mental health conditions in our organization. You know, storytelling is that, you know, being human, it's such a powerful way to build connection. And we engage all of our senior leaders, our executives, including our global CEO, in our mental health storytelling, and it's through so many of our mental health and mental health initiatives throughout the year. So things like our bell, Let's Talk Day, which kind of kicks off our year sets the tone for the year, to our CMHA, mental health week, during the middle of the year. And then we've created our own BJs global mental health week in October. And this is all of these initiatives are where leaders share authentically their stories about their experiences with mental illness. And it's through all of this sharing of experiences that gives or maybe helps, I'll say, helps give others like our team members permission to share their experiences, and helps people understand that they're not alone. And so it really creates that psychologically safe space for our team members to feel comfortable to share. And we've actually had team members reach out to us following these initiatives saying, you know, do you know, due to these initiatives, and due to our leaders being vulnerable, and sharing and hearing what others are saying, and then being able to reflect and say, Oh, that actually sounds a lot like me. And they've said to us that these experiences have helped them reach out to get the help that they need. So we know that at the end of the day, being able to align, you know, our story with another narrative of someone within the organization, especially a leader really helps to elicit, you know, understanding and support from others. So that's been I just wanted to jump on that because you mentioned storytelling. And that has been such a key key, I would say, success piece or story for us at organization when it comes to making it something that team members feel comfortable to speak about. And to come forward about
Bernie Knobbe 12:17
Pascal, nobody does storytelling better than Disney. So it was good that you brought that up. But I'm curious as well around that stigma comment that was made? I mean, how are you addressing that? I think the executive presence data that you referenced is so is so important, right? And I also think it helps managers, because if they feel leaders are talking about it, then they as managers can do the same. So it sets a good example. But what have you been doing at Disney to help on that.
Pascale Thomas 12:43
And then I'm glad you mentioned it, storytelling is aligned to our mission. It is it is part of our goal for the world. And what we found, especially after the pandemic is that we had an organization that was so hyper focused on the world at large, we have 229,000 employees in 70 plus regions, that in many cases, those individuals were thinking about themselves, right, it was all around how we could help support the world that we were all as we were all going through collective trauma. So it was truly important for us to come back with providing, as Dana mentioned, the ability for self care, and for people to take permission into addressing their own their own particular situations. Certainly leadership helps to foster that environment. But I will go a little bit further to talk, you know, primarily around how we, through a number of our initiatives, try to demystify the concept of mental health, with programs and resources, including things like global wellbeing week, where we have an overall focus around well being in general, but really started to articulate the whole concept of wellness to go well beyond the physical but to include the physical, the financial and of social, to recognize holistically, that all of those things are integrated, and that each feed into each other in order to impact an individual's mental health. And if you remember what we went through over the last few years, there was a sense that we went at one point from a physical pandemic and COVID-19 to a psychological pandemic. And so we really wanted to take it take the time to actually look through that and see, well, how do we address it? How do we change the norms around how we speak about that concept, and also recognize that as much as we want leaders to model the behavior, we also have to recognize that leaders are not always equipped to start the conversation. Yet they were at the frontline, right? We were putting the burden on them to go out there. into recognize that the volumes were increasing. And so it was really important for us to provide some high level training around mental health and recognizing that it's not a one size fits all. So that was one aspect of it. The other aspect also was to look around our policies and practices. And so it's no secret that, you know, for years and years, while we've provided EAP, at a high level, we've also considered certain manifestations of mental health at the workplace as being punitive, disruptive to the workplace. And so working closely with our Employee Relations group, to really change the focus and the mindset to understand that, how do you recognize the signs that this particular behavior is not just an individual being disruptive in the workplace, but perhaps the manifestation of something deeper, and providing the appropriate support for those individuals to go one step further, right, and to get the resources that they need so that they can get back to being their best selves in the workplace. Last but not least, recognizing that we needed to equip leaders just to start the conversations to know what to say we've just actually recently developed A Leaders Guide to emotional health. And it is a very plain language type of approach that provides individuals with conversation starters, what do you say? And what do you not say? And importantly, how do you combat compassion fatigue, as you have so many people come to you, asking for help. And we recognize the sign on your own, that you, as a leader have perhaps burned out by the circumstances around you, and find ways to address your own mental health.
Alethea Varra 16:43
I really love the piece you said about demystifying it and really making it part of the normal conversation. I think we've done that with physical health and physical wellness and physical safety. We've created these cultures of safety and made sure that it's part of our just daily conversation that we're thinking about this and talking about this. And we just have such an opportunity to do the same thing when it comes to our own mental wellness, and making sure that we're assessing regularly that we're just talking about it as as part of the normal operations. So that we're not waiting for an incident or we're not waiting for some sort of trigger or flag to intervene.
Dana Hurst 17:21
I would completely agree with you. And one of the things that we've done an organization is actually integrate wellbeing and wellness into our health and safety function. Because previously, we were the wellbeing function was under people and culture, which was great. But our organization safety is so ingrained in our DNA. It is such a part of our culture that we thought, let's capitalize on this. There's a lot of synergies between health and safety. And so by putting these two divisions or permits together, we're able to exactly what you say, integrate that in with the physical. So it's now physical and psychological. And it's not something that team members, it's not foreign to them. It's a part of their toolbox talks for those of our team members that are on the front line, you know, there's a psychological toolbox talk each month. So I think that that's really key. And you mentioned earlier to language, I think language is so important, and looking at those policies and procedures and just how the language and how does it reflect both physical and psychological safety? And not just in the health and safety policies, but in all of your policies? So yeah, I would, I would echo that. Great, great comment.
Bahar Ozkan 18:36
Just one more comment as well about storytelling piece and using leadership to break the stigma piece, very important because sometimes also, we see senior leadership not picking up healthy habits and incorporate into their life. So when you are using them or getting their help for storytelling, it might be sometimes very performative, too. So the first step also needs to be just let's highlight. They also need some support from well being departments and programs and are being team members and working with their executive assistants or their people, solutions partners, HR partners to, if needed be from top down level, even from CEO level or their management to set up some break times in their calendars or working with them to understand what type of strategies that they need and support that they need from bobbing teams. In order to lead by example, we shouldn't be probably missing and neglecting our senior executives, because they're really under huge pressure everywhere, especially with the economy going and going in the world.
Nadine Hoffmann 19:33
I really agree to what data has said as well on the health and safety piece and the benefits of working closely together. I think, especially if you have blue collar workers in a supply chain where you know, health and safety is usually much more embedded and integrated into the day to day business. There are huge benefits of doing that. So what we're doing since a couple of years is we're not running All while being campaigns, but as always wellbeing and safety together. And within our communication campaigns, we're echoing the messaging and the headlines of each other. So we will be running a global wellbeing challenge in May, for example, that is very holistic also helps a lot to work on the, on the culture. It's not only about mental health, but also financial, social and Well Being spiritual well being. But we did also include some safety content in there so that for the employee, it's really one packet and one topic, so to say, because I think often within HR people in culture, we're overwhelming our employees a little bit with all of the different campaigns and communications and topics and I think it's, it's really good to try and streamline that a little bit and to agree with different functions and departments on what is it that we actually want to achieve? What is the message that we want to convey and try to create programs jointly together?
Bernie Knobbe 21:07
Yeah, I was gonna say the same thing around what dangerous health and safety actually we started out with safety moments. Now we have safety moments or wellbeing moments, you can pick which way you want to start out a meeting, but it feels more like a business initiative. Go ahead, Pascal. Yes.
Pascale Thomas 21:24
So I was going to augment that. And I thought it was so spot on, when you were talking about partnership with other parts of the business, it's so important, you know, for us in HR, to truly have a great handle on the diverse needs of our populations. And so many of you have talked about, you know, the importance of safety. And so we have a mix within our organization, right, we have those that are most familiar to you, you know, we start with Mickey and media at the parks. But we have all kinds of individuals within our overall portfolio, including, you know, our, our news correspondents on the front line, right, who are out there, and sometimes putting their lives in danger so that they can bring us great content and great information. We have our Imagineers, our engineers who are constantly working on trying to come up with innovations, then we have professionals, and it's a really diverse mix of individuals. And so when we start to talk about mental health, and we already know that mental health manifests itself in many different ways, and it's not a one size fits all, but when you also add the added layer of a very different mix of individuals, it's really finding that sweet spot of what resonates for everyone. Right, which is difficult. And sometimes it just means that maybe we take a step back, right? So for example, in some of our our functions is around looking at things that are common, how about research that says that you can lengthen your life in general and create optimism through laughter, that's a commonality that you have in right, so having speakers can speak to those kinds of common language things that translate to every layer of the population, talking about change and anxiety in general, right. So again, in speak to everyone, but then also knowing that in some instances, the very nature of the job also provokes different kinds of aspects that we may want to address. And so we know that, you know, we had to look at cognitive behavioral therapy, for example, for to support some of our individuals in the US division, and support for individuals who are dealing with the loss of an animal for Animal Health, for example, at Animal Kingdom, we had to recognize that we had that kind of variety and diversity within our organization to try and provide solutions that were topical and relevant for each group. Thank
Bernie Knobbe 23:57
you. And diversity is important. And boy animal, you got me there with being a dog lover. So anyway, thank you. So now we're gonna think about globally. I mean, I think everyone on this panel operates in a global organization, and probably most of you on the call today are also facing that. And so maybe I'll start with Bihar and just say, you know, how have you dealt with those cultural differences? I mean, UK, Australia, some countries are very strong and how they deal with, you know, certification around mental health and so forth. But in other parts of the world, you know, it's a challenge. And so any thoughts on that?
Bahar Ozkan 24:32
Exactly. Thank you very much for asking this question. very timely, because I look after a wellbeing function for a global company where we have 70 countries, and we have 500,000 employees. You heard it right. It's half million people all around the world. And as Pascal said, There is no one fits all support for anyone we have to customize and tailor that approach based on the local needs. So each culture has their own nuances and communication styles. There at views are different, their values are different, right? So all this even reflect this up in language usage and have they reach out to resources. And so one example is from our friends team, we have a great team in France. And the other day, they were saying, Can you please just don't bother yourself sending me well being messages or emails in English, I'm not opening the email in English. So I just want to read everything in French. This is not from a cultural point of view, only they read the air very well. So not only French, very high context culture, they not reading the air, they want actual nuances, they want humor. Some cultures actually want more relational trust building, right, everything in terms of communication might be very different one place to another. So our responsibility is reading the air variable. And these needs variable to as I mentioned before, it could be either heat mapping, or doing listening circles or doing more proper robust assessments. Because what we figured is even complexity and culture and diversity reflects itself in bias in assessment. So we can do surveys all around the world, but we can see post positive replies in some countries or post negative replies in certain countries. So how are we going to make the assessment methodology more robust have been our step one, since we launched our program in consent concentrics. That's why more listening and bringing more voice of employees looking at different correlations all around the world, in order to bring localized approach, and maybe even behavioral mapping, and more clients. And so employee stories, storytelling locally, needs to be implemented in place. And also what they figured is we talked about cognitive behavioral therapy, different therapy techniques, even receiving therapy techniques are different. Some we figured some individuals actually prefer and they feel more comfortable in group settings. Some of our employees, they prefer actually more one on one, and they want to focus on their own well being journey just using a mental health app, or they don't want to be even heard or listened by anyone, they just want to be in their own bubble and do their own planning. Totally respect everybody's expectations. But it's the matter of understanding different expectations in that sense. But I have to mention here, I never saw these actually differences and nuances as challenges. I think this is such a gift, working in a global organization and seeing and witnessing different types of behaviors approach and nuances. And that helps you to open your heart and your approach to differences and different needs and expectations. Right. And what I like to mention here is how we cope with that challenges a little bit is getting some help from management and putting well being editing communication, the launch programs in business meetings to strategize locally, what should be the communication plan look like locally in that country? Or what should be the engagement plan look like in that country? Because what you come at it as a program level global it, it wouldn't reflect on land in as you anticipate, right? You need to just think about culturally how you're going to make this program or communication methodology proper for this location? Is the question for every one that we are asking with the teams that we are working with.
Alethea Varra 28:06
Yeah, I would, I really appreciate what you said about it being a gift by heart, because I do think it is a gift that we have so much that we can learn from each other and so much that we can learn from the different approaches and the and the different viewpoints globally. We talk about it as delivering global care hyper locally. And it is important to know that partially, you know, Bernie, what you mentioned, there are so many differences in terms of certifications, and who can call themselves a psychologist in one country versus another and how much training that entails and what that training could sit up. And so it does take a lot of effort to make sure that the quality of care that you're delivering and all of those different locations is very high. And how you measure that and how you think about high quality care in all those places is going to be a little bit more complicated and a little bit more nuanced. And, and we talk a lot about parity and wanting parity globally and those pieces, but I think it's also important to make sure that we realized that that may, parity may not all look exactly the same. It may look different in different locations. But really the goal there is to be most effective, like equally effective and equally supportive to all of those populations versus cookie cutter and it all looking exactly the same. And I do think it is important to be able to trust that the providers that you're working with in those places and the leaders that you're working with across the globe. Understand that and understand that, you know, you can't just use a centralized team to deliver all of the care across the world and you can't expect individuals who aren't part of those communities to really know all of the the cultural, the socio political sort of impacts and experiences that are going on there, and how that should change your care in a very culturally responsive way. So it's just incredibly important.
Pascale Thomas 30:07
I agree. And I'm glad that you brought up the concept of parity or equity, you know, as we think more globally, and for us, we've changed the language to be more about inclusivity. And making sure that we have a clear understanding of what it means, you know, non US and so, you know, there are certain parameters that, you know, we're, we're looking at in the US that are not quite relevant in other locations, right around the world are still some, some basic needs, that we're still fighting within our policies, you know, as we go through health renewals on an annual basis, that we have to challenge our vendor partners to go after to the extent that the landscape allows for those to be edited. And so we really had to work very closely with our local partners, HR, as well as our our colleagues around the world to say, where do we want to be, you know, as an organization, what are the standards that we think are minimal for us, across the organization that resonated but uniquely in a way that reflects our values, but reflect what the local landscape is, and then collected and did an inventory just to see where we were around the world and said, okay, in 50, plus countries, this is where we are for some where we think we are at parity, as you mentioned, around those standards and bases, where we are going to be read for a while because the landscape does not allow for it. But where are some of those things that we can as things continue to develop, you know, push the envelope a little bit if we can, and if we can work with those providers. And I really love what you said earlier VR, about language, my gosh, so critical, and we will doubt resiliency app to complement, the global EAP program that we have. And as you know, you know, what the AP represents, for us in the US, it's definitely not necessarily related program is being utilized in other countries, right? There are many more challenges, including, you know, physical environmental challenges that oftentimes, you know, we acquire for us to address crisis management in a very different way. And so when we launch the resiliency application, we work very closely with the provider, because we knew we just couldn't send it in English, right? We were operating in some places where, you know, simple Chinese would have been understood, or it had to be Portuguese, but we didn't know once in Brazil, right. And so, and in Latin America, we had to find a way to get to a middle ground, because Spanish is not spoken exactly the same everywhere. And so we really wanted to make sure and of course, we had France, we have Disneyland Paris, of course, in France. And so we really took our time, before we did that global launch to work with that provider and say, you know, what's your roadmap around language, and they were willing to partner with us, and get to that, so that we would have a prayer for success with the application.
Bernie Knobbe 33:20
Okay, thank you that it's just great to talk about the challenges, because that's an opportunity to then address them, right. And so many of you have shared what you've been doing around that. And that's what it's about, right? It's about learning from others, and then applying that in your organization. So that's great. I know, we're just got a few minutes left here. But the one thing that has come up throughout the conversation is around managerial support. And so it's like, how do you get that leadership engagement? How do you get support for what it is that you're looking to do that you know, that the business needs, or that your employees are expecting from the organization? And so, you know, I'll start with Nadine, but of course, everybody else jump in any additional thoughts around how to best do that? Yeah,
Nadine Hoffmann 34:04
I think we have to listen to our people, managers needs very well. And we've actually done that and ask them what's from your point of view, the biggest challenges for the future and they said, reorganizations within companies change and the expectations from employees. And that also, that is, that is that includes wellbeing, as well. And so, we do have several trainings, focusing on wellbeing, mental health, and I think the most effective ones are the ones that give really practical guidelines or allow them to gain their own experiences and having well being conversations, for example, through role plays. And what's also very important, I think, is you know, and it's it's a sentiment I think everyone in people and culture knows we're sending out people manage us for Leadership Programs and the trainings are excellent. But then the things they've learned are not being implemented in their day to day practices. And so I think, to have a routine with them, after the trainings where they can exchange experiences, they can speak about challenges, or they can even bring in very specific situations they were facing and their teams and asked for support, and even some kind of coaching that really, really helps. And on the other hand, I wanted to elaborate a little bit on what has said before on kind of connecting the dots in terms of data, because we have, I think a lot of us know that survey fatigue, we have discussed a lot about that internally, this year, and last year, and so we had a leadership survey. But what we've done is we have kind of integrated that into the training so that it doesn't really feel like a survey. And we have spoken to many different HR people and culture functions prior to designing the survey. And we have tried to come up with questions and content for that survey that would allow us to have these correlations with other people and culture programs, for example, general leadership program, and that would allow us to, for example, see if it's beneficial that people managers run through a general leadership program, and then a deep dive and well being or if it's more of a duplication, and so that worked really, really well. But in terms of the first bit that I've mentioned, around teams, I think there is a lot that needs to be done in that area, because there will always be change. And even more if we think about things like AI and stuff like that influencing our day to day business. In the future. I do think we need a bigger focus on organizational well being. There is actually a really great study from William Fleming from the Oxford University. I don't know if anyone of you have has read it. But he made a really good comment and said we risk continuing a cycle of extending mental health services without taking steps to reduce the needs for them. And so I think, you know, it's really, really important to look at not only the individual, but also the organization as a total and see what we can do to really, yeah, address that and and promote Well, being very holistically.
Bahar Ozkan 37:49
I love that Snoddy almost perfectly also, you reminded me when we go to a rebranding for our well being program, we created some nice catchy phrases for all the business leaders and senior executives to associate well being with maybe more digestible way. And we created some terminology around well being is not fluffy. So everybody's now learned after they say well being is not fluffy, or we are like we are your partner, we want to we want to be a catalyst to your success, we are your partners. So we are partnering and collaborating in this is another term we try to teach them. And other one is what we can measure we can manage. So there are some really good actual phrases around well being going on and on branding so that leaders see us as they are driving force for success and helping their workforce to be healthy and successful in that way. So there is a strong relationship. And every quarter, we are meeting with senior executives and our sponsors to give them their stack ranking. So it's called the bid competition. I'm not encouraging everyone to do this competition. Not every culture is up to it. But our leaders really, really like it actually see what countries are the winner is what is the biggest improvement countries actually this quarter? What is the contribution to their success metrics and performance? And what are the goals and where they are. So making that actually speaking their language helped us a lot to get their buy in and be our partners in this journey?
Dana Hurst 39:14
Yeah, I would echo that in that showing leaders the actual data. So that, that that right there sort of solidifies your your business case. In that they can see, you know, for for us, for instance, in Canada, you know, what are the mental health disability claims? What are the costs when they see that? You know, that's for them, you know, something that says, Oh, yes, we do need to step up and take action. And, you know, we have a very supportive leadership team here. But I think just showing them the data, knowing what it is goes a long way to not only them participating in trainings and taking advantage of resources, but encouraging their teams to do so as well. So I think showing them the actual data that that can resonate with them is really important. Amazing, Chris
Bernie Knobbe 40:05
is Chris. Right? Yes. Welcome, Matt. Yeah. And I know we're almost out of time, we always like to give people an opportunity to maybe make any final comments, etc. So I'll turn it over to you.
Chris Rainey 40:14
Yeah, I was just gonna ask everyone, you know, well, firstly, great conversation, I forgot that I was even part I was like, audience member for so long, it was so enjoyable. Listen to the conversation. I was just gonna ask everyone we covered so much. But what would be each of your parting pieces of takeaway? Or, you know, what have you learned from the conversation from your peers? And what what you taking away from this conversation? And then we'll say goodbye? Who should we start off with? First, Dana, want to kick us off?
Dana Hurst 40:43
Sure, I think my parting information. And I don't think we really touched on this. But I think as we look at mental health and into the future, one of the things that I think we all need to be cognizant of as organizations is we do a lot of focus on our people. But we also need to focus on sort of our spaces where our individuals are working those workspaces, because if you're all familiar, you may or may not be but with the Netflix documentary, live 200 Secrets of the Blue Zones, we actually trademarked Blue Zone buildings. And this is sort of the note the premise that we can impact our team members mental and physical wellbeing by improving and making our office spaces bluer. So there's, I think, this notion that yes, we've always been on the people. But let's also look at our spaces and how can we have those impact team member mental health and well being as well.
Chris Rainey 41:37
I love that this is a great, perfect opportunity for us to also reimagine our, our workspaces, right? I had a conversation recently, where I saw some research found, even having a 40% reduction in oxygen levels can make your decision making 50%. Like slower to make a decision. Like there's a real research coming out around somebody's effects on people in the workplace as well. So I love that Aha, yeah,
Bahar Ozkan 42:05
my takeaways around safe spaces, healthy communication and collaboration, multidisciplinary collaborations, or departmental collaborations that I'm seeing from every panelist, they are doing amazing job collaborating and partnering with different executed levels or functions. That is my takeaway to continue that collaboration internally in my organization, and hoping to have more collaboration within the valving space with all these panelists and other people to contribute to our space. This is a collective effort. And I think we are going to create a beautiful picture altogether at the end of the day.
Chris Rainey 42:38
Oh, I love that. That was great. Pascal, it will close
Pascale Thomas 42:41
those words, in what I would add is that I think most of us on the panel either have well being within our job responsibilities, or we met or title, but we have to recognize that it's not just up to us, right? It's really a collective effort. We have to be able to collaborate and reach out whether it's to individuals on the real estate side, as Dana mentioned, or, or talk to other individuals, whether it's social responsibility, work with the community work with our vendors, and more broadly, embrace the concept that it's a shared ownership in order to truly embed a culture of well being within your organization. If you
Alethea Varra 43:22
Yeah, I think I would kind of echo that piece where I would say, this is a really complex task ahead of us. So especially when we're thinking globally, and we're thinking about very large scale organizations, the we're kind of all in this together, I think we have so much that we can learn and when we support each other, that we can make such such a huge impact in so many people's lives. And it really is possible on a global level. And it really is possible for all of those individuals to make a difference not only in those workers, but in the work that they're doing. And in the quality of the care that they receive.
Chris Rainey 43:56
Mason, and Bernie last not least we started with you, Bernie, we're gonna go for 360 and end.
Bernie Knobbe 44:04
What's your final comp? Oh, sorry. That's okay. That's okay.
Chris Rainey 44:11
This is why this is why you're moderating Bernie.
Nadine Hoffmann 44:16
I actually don't have a lot to add on. The other panelists, I think I really loved a bit around, you know, data driven wellbeing strategies and trying to speak the language of the business to have a better collaboration with with within the same time acknowledging all the local cultures and the local sensitivities around well being. So I really appreciate that. But yeah, not more to add from my side
Bernie Knobbe 44:43
thing, and I'll just add, Chris, as all the attendees have been so fortunate today to really hear from some of the best in the business, right. And in our industry. I mean, this has just been the highest level of expertise and sharing of stories. And so it's been a pleasure for me and also if we can just get everybody in the panel this smile because one thing I noticed is everybody has a great smile. And that's a nice well being moment. And for me anyway, as well. So thanks for this opportunity today, Chris, I'll turn it back to you.
Chris Rainey 45:10
All right. That's our snapshot for our LinkedIn picture. We're gonna move on there now. Well, thank you so much for everyone who tuned in. Thank you, Bernie, for for moderating to all of our amazing panelists. We appreciate wherever you are in the world for tuning in. As as many of the panelists said, we're all in this together. And it's the ripple effect of these conversations that impact the lives of millions of people, which is why we do this. So thank you for everyone that's tuned in and make sure you share this tagging colleagues, share it with people on LinkedIn as well for us, we want to share all of this knowledge and experience and help as many people as possible, obviously special thank you. So our friends at lira health, for supporting us and bringing us down together. Apart from that we will be back on May the second for the next panel, where we're gonna be talking about how employee recognition and Culture shapes tomorrow's resilient workplaces. So apart from that, wherever you are in the world, enjoy your day, and we'll see you again soon. Bye, everyone. Thank you
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