Debunking the Myths behind Workplace Wellbeing With Janet Buckley

Janet Buckley is Head of Organisational Development with the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC). In this role, she is responsible for all elements of OD, HR, L&D, including wellbeing.

She has over 24 years' experience across the civil and public service with additional expertise in the private and charity sectors. She has been in OD roles for the last 16 years, where her passion for workplace wellbeing emerged. As Head of L&D in her previous Civil Service position, she became very interested in making work life more rewarding and fulfilling for her colleagues.

During the recession, she realised that it was the perfect time to bring wellbeing front and centre. It was essential, and it was necessary. She set about achieving an ambitious challenge of creating a wellbeing culture in a civil service organisation with a minimal budget. By her own admission, her ambition was for the organisation to be able to stand up and hold their own next to the googles and facebooks.

Her passion for wellbeing continued in her current role where she is overseeing the final year of their 3-year strategy (on a budget). The foundations created by the strategy in the first two years has advanced them in responding to Covid-19. With the assistance of the Wellbeing Committee, they have provided ongoing support and engagement initiatives to help people find their way through the pandemic.

She joins us today to debunk the myths that wellbeing is expensive and time-consuming and that it's HR's responsibility.

"One of my belief systems about well being is that we all have a personal and collective responsibility to make the workplace better for each other."

Janet is passionate about holistic principles (as well as yoga) that focus on the person as a whole. She has been commuting for work for 18 years and is now trying to improve people's experience with work. Janet started researching this area as a personal interest. She went on to talk to people and came across various initiatives. When reading about some initiatives Google was deploying at the time, she immediately made the connection to the public sector. A lot was happening in the area of workplace wellbeing in the public sector long before Google. Some examples are the family-friendly initiatives and the implementation of a shorter working year.

Wellbeing as a part of the organisational development strategy

The CCPC is a small organisation that is going through a growth spurt at the moment as Janet tells us. The main drivers behind the successful integration of wellbeing initiatives in the organisation are the strategy and the framework around it. Janet takes wellbeing as serious as she would take any HR or L&D strategy. The wellbeing strategy needs to become a part of the company's DNA for it to have a real and sustained impact. The support of senior leadership has had an immense effect on the overall uptake of wellbeing initiatives and especially on the long term success. 

Janet bases her organisational wellbeing plan on real data and consultations with employees. She measures participation rates to see trends on what works well and what doesn't. She is also very interested to see what timing works better for employees. 

How to implement wellbeing initiatives on a limited budget

Several companies find themselves stuck on a limited budget that doesn't allow them to implement any new initiatives. Janet thinks organisational wellbeing can be implemented through low-cost activities, and she has been doing this for years in the public sector. An example she talks about is a "Safe Cycling to Work" event she organised during National Bike Week. She went to a local bike store and told them they wanted to bring in a couple of demo bikes and talk to people about safe city cycling. The bike store agreed, and it was all for free. Even more, the bike store owner came in to give people a demo and also do three bike maintenance sessions for free. People learned how to change a tyre, how to fix chains and how to check brakes for free. 

How to measure the success of workplace wellbeing initiatives

As part of the implementation strategy, Janet always works closely with the organisation to obtain accurate data. The company offers a resource from each division to participate in what they call the wellbeing committee. This wellbeing committee provides informal feedback for a lot of initiatives. In this way, Janet can gather timely feedback regarding events, participation rates and so on.

After implementing a strategy, it is essential to look into positive trends and improvement points. One thing they are looking at closely at the moment is hydration. They want to see if people see improvements in that area after going through the hydration awareness campaign.

Other metrics of success are screentime, healthy eating and physical exercise. 

Janet strongly believes that at the heart of the wellbeing strategy should always be a genuine desire to see people doing well and creating better habits.

In order to help people dealing with financial problems caused by the Covid-19 crisis, the CCPC has developed a programme called "Money skills for life". The program offers employees a free one-hour personal finance talk. The goal is to provide financial education to employees, with the support of their employer. Find out more here.

Want to connect with Janet? Follow her on LinkedIn.

Are you interested in learning more about workplace wellbeing and educating yourself in this area? Head on over to www.workwellinstitute.org, where I'm launching my online education programmes. You can learn all about my 8-step framework for developing a workplace wellness programme that lasts.

If you have any suggestions for future topics you'd like to hear on the show, email me directly, brian@workwellpodcast.com