Health and wellbeing have increasingly become a priority since the start of the pandemic because lockdown restrictions prohibited activities that positively influence personal welfare.
As limitations on socialising have lifted changes to work routines are here to stay, which employers and employees are adapting to.
A wellbeing strategy was developed by the OutsideClinic after a company-wide survey asked what staff would like to see from their employer.
Lynda Oliver, head of human resources at the domiciliary provider, tells Optician the company wanted to understand what staff needed and shout about why OutsideClinic is a great place to work.
‘The last year was so tough. Coming back to work, everybody’s life had changed. For example, if you were furloughed, you came back to a different world of work. People think very differently about work now,’ she explains.
For Oliver, the development of a wellbeing strategy was the next obvious step after becoming a living wage employer, making internal policy changes and signing up to a charter to improve on treating staff with compassion.
‘It was a case of making OutsideClinic an enjoyable and healthy environment. Given the struggles that people suddenly had last year, we were offering tools and resources for our staff to become more resilient to change, in their own lives and in their work lives. That’s what I set about looking at,’ Oliver says.
OutsideClinic uses the World Health Organization’s definition of wellbeing, where: ‘Mental health is defined as a state of wellbeing in which every individual realises his or her own potential, can cope with normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to her or his community.’
Oliver says that definition encompasses everything the OutsideClinic wants to achieve in terms of looking after its current and future employees.
OutsideClinic has been a member of the Mindful Employer Network for five years and has been using their employer help guide to provide an assistance line to employees. During a meeting with the network on Zoom, Oliver was introduced to a social enterprise called Tasting Colours.
Inspired by the organisation’s innovative new programme, Oliver started to discuss how they could work together, which led to the introduction of a pilot scheme.
Oliver says: ‘It’s all about seeing what works for our staff in the environment that we have. We have a head office and optometrists who are working all over the country. We have people from different family backgrounds that need different things. We wanted to make sure that whatever strategy we were going to decide on, our wellbeing policy had to be all-encompassing and was a fit for everybody. That’s the journey we’re going through at the moment.’
Opportunities for discussion
An organisation-wide assessment utilised a measure called the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale, which provided OutsideClinic with metrics on staff wellbeing that could be evaluated and used as evidence to develop the scheme.
Higher scores on the scale are associated with higher levels of mental wellbeing. ‘The scale goes between 0 to 70. Fifteen percent of the UK sit below 42, 15% of the UK are above 60 and 70% of the UK sit between 43 and 59,’ Oliver shares.
Oliver explains she did not want to introduce a scheme that would simply tick a box or provide a wellbeing app that staff either did or didn’t engage with. She is confident the business will benefit from Tasting Colour’s programme because of the assessments completed so far.
The programme includes six one-to-one sessions with Tasting Colours over six weeks, as well as coaching sessions for optometrists conducted by phone or Zoom. Outcomes could range from a new sit-stand desk to an individual feeling more energised when working. Flexible family schemes are available, as are opportunities for more creative work.
Oliver said: ‘It’s as much about trying to discover each individual’s needs and then having the encouragement and the support that they can come and ask for it.’
She adds the scheme has been well received so far and employees reported they appreciated the opportunity to speak about themselves with someone other than family, friends or a work colleague.
The six-week scheme ended on November 24 and a report will be assessed by OutsideClinic to identify what worked well for employees and what parts of the programme would be feasible for the company to continue. OutsideClinic will ask participants if productivity and happiness at work has improved because of the programme.
Oliver took part in the programme and says it helped her evaluate the people in her personal and professional life who were a resource to her. ‘For example, somebody who can give me strength. Somebody who I know I can go to when I need some particular expert advice or even just some emotional support,’ she says.
Work-life balance
Assessment forms have been filled in by participants, including a scale of progress. Oliver is confident the positive way the course has run for her will be reflected on the scale.
‘Everybody’s following the same programme, but of course everybody’s an individual,’ Oliver adds. ‘It’s about how you are in yourself and how you’re going to behave at work. You can feel the difference. I can feel it with some of the people who are doing the course. Just by water cooler moments and people smiling more. It can be as simple as that.’
Lynda Oliver, OutsideClinic’s head of human resources
Those who have gone through the programme have been asked to be wellbeing champions at OutsideClinic to create a network of people in the business who can spread its mental health message.
Oliver notes: ‘The employer or external forces can’t always help you. It is about strengthening your core to make you stronger for yourself, which makes everybody feel they’re in control.’
There are benefits for OutsideClinic as a business too because the happier an individual is, the more productive they are. ‘All of the staff at the OutsideClinic are part of a bigger picture,’ Oliver says, adding that the better this is the more people want to join the company. She says it shows OutsideClinic cares about its staff and reinforces its image as a family company.
‘You can’t impose things on people. Every individual has the right to say, “No, I don’t want that help, thank you.” This is not something that everybody is going to have to take part in. Whatever programme we end up with once the pilot has been completed when we make some decisions, for people that it didn’t suit, we will look for other alternatives. We will have a menu of things that people can jump into at any time they want to. Without it being a big flag that we have to fly all the time, I want it to be weaved into our normal daily working,’ Oliver says.
OutsideClinic facilitates a healthy work-life balance by offering a flexible working week for practitioners who have childcare needs, want to work in other settings, or study for a professional certificate.
Oliver says: ‘Most things, we can try to help and work around. Optometrists do not feel the need to work full-time anymore. They want to have that balance, not only for their own personal life, but also for their professional life. We support that. Doing one thing five days a week for 40 hours, I think those days are gone.’
Practitioners are asking about flexibility when interviewing at the OutsideClinic too and the company raises it for discussion early on, which Oliver says encourages those who worked for an employer where flexibility was not a priority.