Practitioner view: Carlsberg UK’s Debbie Fennell discusses its far-reaching wellbeing initiatives
The changes took their toll on employees despite there being widespread support for the shift in direction. Our executive team knew it had won hearts and minds but that there was a real danger of change fatigue setting in. We knew we needed to be better at supporting employees if we were to continue to be successful. As a result, wellbeing became an important part of our business strategy.
We have always understood it makes good business sense to care for our colleagues, both at work and away from it. Two years ago, we started work on our wellbeing strategy along with our Semper Ardens (‘always burning’) cultural programme. We wanted to ensure that whenever a team member needed help with any aspect of their health there were resources on hand, pathways they could follow, and a working environment that would support them.
The then CEO Julian Momen was understanding and supportive of wellbeing initiatives and so led from the top. For example, he launched our mental health champions initiative with a personal letter sent to employees’ home addresses and talked about his own experiences of mental illness at our town hall gatherings. This support from the top was important and added credibility to our initiatives.
By taking a holistic approach from the start, we have been able to track which activities have had the most impact and observe how an imbalance in any one dimension of wellbeing can have an effect in other areas. This has meant that the tools we have invested in to support our employees have been wide-ranging. They include providing private health insurance to help employees get the healthcare they need quickly; low cost loans to enable our employees to avoid the pitfalls of payday loans; 24-hour online GP and prescription services for those employees that struggle to get an appointment; and perhaps, our most welcome service, our mental health champions.
They are a group of listening ears around our offices and field locations. Our 24 champions have been given the training and permission to enable peer-to-peer support during work hours, shifting our approach so we can offer real-time help.
We want to create a culture where there is no stigma attached to any aspect of wellbeing. We also want to be proactive, putting in place early interventions to prevent any illness becoming more serious or lengthy absences where possible. By doing this we believe we will improve engagement, performance and productivity.
We have started the journey to achieving this but it’s constant work in progress – this is no simple tick box exercise.
The author is Debbie Fennell, Compensation and Benefits Specialist, Carlsberg UK
