Video tutorial: Aviva’s Nina Brown & Lisa Ost on developing leaders for a positive workplace culture

The role of leaders in building a positive workplace culture is vital, which makes developing and training them even more important, according to Lisa Ost, UK employee wellbeing lead and Nina Brown, wellbeing propositions lead – UK health and protection at Aviva.

Speaking at the REBA Employee Wellbeing Congress, the duo shared their own journey on developing leaders for wellbeing. “Equipping and engaging leaders is absolutely vital to sustaining a wellbeing strategy,” said Ost.

She talked about how Aviva uses people at the top to drive wellbeing and to role model for their staff. “Getting them to do some of that role modelling will create buy-in throughout the rest of the organisation,” she said.

Brown said it was about empowering leaders to have some of the conversations that HR may previously have had with staff around absence for example and when they weren’t feeling up to work, she said. “Engagement for us has been key. We have run a number of initiatives,” she said.

However engagement also drives expectations, she explained which organisations have to beware of. “At Aviva we didn’t set out a formal business case or ROI we said this feels like the right thing to do,” she said.

This video was recorded at the REBA Employee Wellbeing Congress 2019, held in London on 20 June.