CIPD Festival of Work: 12-13 June, London: a round-up
Organisations need to spend more time and money on creating healthy working environments, preventing issues rather than treating symptoms – this was one of the themes from the CIPD’s Festival of Work in London.
A panel exploring ‘putting your people first – why health and wellbeing in the workplace is central to everything that a successful organisation does’ agreed that employers risk losing sight of the importance of preventative interventions on organisational wellbeing, particularly given the compelling ‘industry’ offering solutions to tackle problems.
Panel chair, Paul Devoy, CEO of Investors in People, said,“There is now a whole industry that has been created to service the fact we didn’t have a wellbeing culture to start with. That money could be spent on more productive things than dealing with the symptoms.”
Matt Holt-Rogers, director and head of wellbeing at Wellbeing4business, said, “We can provide all these solutions to all these symptoms we’re seeing but, if we place someone back in the same environment, we’ll see the symptoms again.”
TV doctor and mental health ambassador, Dr Alex George said rather than offering quick fixes such as yoga lessons, employers need to create better working environments, including natural sunlight, and to offer equal access to both mental and physical health support. He also said managers shouldn’t be held responsible for fixing people and that too many take on this role despite being ill-equipped for it.
Clare Dare, head of large corporate consulting at PIB Employee Benefits, said that when looking at benefits to aid employee wellbeing, it’s important HR recognise its “unconscious bias” towards different generations in the workplace and how that may influence decision-making. She suggested businesses trust employees to work at times they find most productive.