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21 Jul 2016
by Liz Morrell

Video: Employee Wellness Conference: Essential ingredients for a successful wellbeing strategy

Successful wellbeing strategies need both a dedicated leader and a dedicated brand, was one of the conclusions from a panel discussion on the impact of wellness on a company’s bottom line at the REBA Employee Wellness Conference 2016.

Watch the panel session ‘Wellness: The impact on your company’s bottom line’ in full

Steve Bell, global CEO of ad agency Iris Worldwide, said that at his company the need to attract the very best talent meant investing in someone dedicated to the welbeing cause, to help attract top rate staff.

“We realised we needed to make it a place people wanted to spend their time rather than somewhere they had to come to pick up a pay cheque at the end of the month and needed to find someone who would focus on wellbeing as a full time job,” he said.

At Royal Mail Group Dr Shaun Davis, group director of safety, health, wellbeing and sustainability, said that branding his company’s scheme under the banner Feeling First Class had worked well. “Having a brand people can associate with is incredibly powerful,” he said. “Have it as an identity that gets people talking and that will create its own momentum,” he said.

Dr Davis said that the wellbeing score on the businesse’ employee enagement survey had gone up two points every year since introducing the First Class programme. He said the company used measures such as absenteeism and absence costs as a way of looking at wellbeing and spend, as well as softer measures such as employee opinion surveys.

However management buy-in was also essential, according to Bell. “If the board doesn’t believe it’s critically important then you are fighting a losing battle,” he said.

The panel, which also included Beth Robotham, head of business development, Bupa UK; Dr Paul Litchfield, CMO and director wellbeing, inclusion, safety and health, BT plc and Melanie Gurney, executive director HR & head of L&D, Mizuho International – also gave advice in the session to those trying to set up a wellness strategy with limited budget.

This video was filmed at the REBA Employee Wellness Conference 2016.