Large scale wellbeing programmes with Dr. Stephanie Fitzgerald

In this episode of The Work Well Podcast, we have the pleasure to welcome Dr. Stephanie Fitzgerald. Stephanie is a Chartered Clinical Psychologist, Neuropsychologist, keynote speaker, and author. She is also the founder of Soyo Ltd, a company designed to help individuals and organisations achieve their highest and happiest potential.

Stephanie has experience as a Health and Wellbeing Consultant in multiple organisations, such as Deloitte, the NHS, emergency response teams through to a Premier League football team. More recently, she developed the Global Mental Health strategy for Rolls-Royce, an organisation with over 50,000 employees worldwide. Her specialty is delivering practical, evidence-based interventions that provide a base for sustainable improvement, in a safety-critical environment.

I know you’ll enjoy this conversation with Stephanie! 

From individual consultancy to large-scale organisational strategies

Stephanie's background in clinical psychology and her years of experience in the corporate world made her realise the potential of taking the conversation about mental health to a bigger scale. 

Today's episode starts with Stephanie and Brian discussing how a clinical psychologist working with individuals in the NHS, transitions into a strategist for a global organisation like Rolls-Royce.

"I've really been quite blessed with the variety of industries I've worked in. So I've worked on everything, from Premier League football clubs through to finance, through to emergency response workers. And it's amazing to see all these industries catch up with the wellbeing conversation." She says.

Developing a mental health strategy for a global company

Back in 2019, Stephanie joined Rolls-Royce, where she had the opportunity to develop a global mental health strategy for the workforce. 

The COVID pandemic was an unexpected surprise to Stephanie (and many others!) who of course hadn’t foreseen supporting around 50,000 employees through lockdown and remote working models. In addition, she had to deal with a demanding restructuring of the company at a global level. 

The last two years were especially difficult for Rolls Royce as they lost nearly 20% of their workforce, one of the biggest restructures the company had to endure since its foundation. 

"That was immensely challenging for all the reasons that you'd imagine, but also the stress and pressure that left on people who remained", comments Stephanie.

When wellbeing initiatives are not enough

Stephanie mentions a recurring theme when it comes to implementing mental health strategies. That is that wellbeing initiatives are often not enough if there isn't a culture in the workplace to support the delivery of these strategies.

Along with that, most health and wellbeing programmes are not company specific, so they tend to fall into the same basket of generic wellbeing practices, and they lack the functionality required to be effective.

For global companies, going beyond the usual initiatives is even more challenging when they face difficulties such as different policies and different workplace cultures across jurisdictions, for example Stephanie highlights the legal and cultural differences between the UK, the US and Germany to illustrate this. "The things that make you a good, kind, caring manager in the UK actually have legal complications in the US and Germany and you can't really have a generic training for mental health champions," she says.

Stephanie found that one of the ways to encourage active participation in wellbeing programmes is through internal training for volunteers. In this regard, Stephanie says: "I wanted them to feel they were getting something out of it. So the other thing I developed was a rolling curriculum with different topics. So the people constantly felt they were being up-skilled and able to have these conversations."

How has Stephanie taken advantage of ISO45003?

The ISO45003 standard was developed last year and is the first global standard for psychosocial health and safety in the workplace. 

Stephanie sees its value in the fact that it is a child standard to one already used by some companies (ISO45001). Thus, these organisations have already put into practice some of the recommendations for health and wellbeing, so it is easier for them to follow the framework presented in ISO45003.

And for organisations that are not familiar with ISO standards, Stephanie recommends rephrasing part of the standard to adapt its language to a more accessible one, making it applicable to the reality of each company. Stephanie sees this as an opportunity: "If you've got these things in place, you're off to a cracking start, but you've got loads of space to be creative and imaginative and make it your own and build it into your own company. Whether you're a small office of five people or a massive organisation, I think you've got ways of building the core principles." 

Using data to improve wellbeing in the workplace

We understand, organisations want tangible results after only a few wellbeing interventions, but that can only come with the implementation of the proper strategies and by setting attainable goals. Deciding what strategies are best is where collecting internal data becomes extremely useful. 

But it is not only about looking at the numbers on a piece of paper, says Stephanie, it is also about thinking outside of the box because what some might think are good indicators, can be useless if data is skewed. That is why Stephanie comments: "I think it's so important. I mean, often I ask people to think outside the box when it comes to wellbeing data. So wellbeing is notoriously difficult to measure if you want a strict ROI."

In the same way, Stephanie believes that employees should know why they are attending said wellbeing initiatives. “Just giving people the option isn’t enough. If they're not taking it already, they're not going to take it just because you give it to them. Whereas if you can explain and give them a reason to take it, they are much more likely to attend", she explains. 

If you’d prefer to watch our conversation, you can view it on YouTube through this link. 

If you liked this episode, and you'd like to know more about Dr. Stephanie Fitzgerald, follow her on LinkedIn, Instagram, or Twitter.

About Your Host

Brian Crooke is a wellbeing educator, speaker and adviser, empowering organisations to promote and sustain wellbeing within their workplaces.

He is the founder of The Work Well Institute and the Work Well Community and is Course Director of the Postgraduate Certificate in Workplace Wellness at Tangent, Trinity College Dublin. He is the host of The Work Well Podcast.

If you’re looking to bring sustainable wellbeing to your workplace then check out The Work Well Institute’s flagship programme, Developing a Workplace Wellness Programme that Lasts.

In his spare time, Brian is bringing free resistance training to every county and community in Ireland through his parkHIIT social enterprise.

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