Promoting and protecting wellbeing

Of your team

Set achievable demands for your people in relation to agreed hours of work. Tack officewide leave days on to long weekends or close early some days.

Match their skills and abilities to job demands. Allow people where possible to work to their passions.

Support your team to have a level of control over their pace of work. Only have meetings when they are needed (even if they have been scheduled). Make meetings shorter than two hours.

Regularly revise planning, assessment and reporting systems to reduce unnecessary work.

Involve your team in decisions that may impact their wellbeing, and have processes to enable them to raise concerns they might have. Aim for good communications throughout your organisation.

Ensure managers and supervisors have the capability and knowledge to identify, understand and support their people who may be feeling stressed.

Provide your people with access to independent counselling services. They could also benefit from financial planning advice or discounted health insurance.

Have agreed policies and procedures to prevent or resolve unacceptable behaviour. Aim for the swift resolution of poor relationships before they become entrenched or affect more than a few individuals.

Engage and consult with your team before implementing change processes, and ensure they genuinely have the ability to influence the decisions you make. Make change occur at a tempered pace.

Reward your staff in ways they prefer. Shared morning teas and planned social events build a sense of belonging. Other rewards can encourage healthy lifestyles like nutritionfocused recipe books, discounted gym memberships or supporting your social clubs sports team.

Be a family first employer — a little give and take goes a long way. Know the different cultures and religions in your team and promote inclusiveness, even in the staff tearoom.

Of your leaders

Give leaders the same support as you give other staff, plus:

Encourage leaders to bank and use glide time for personal reasons to balance out extra work they do.

Consider regular professional supervision or mentoring for them. Enable access to highquality professional development/conferences. Encourage a distributed leadership model to reduce CEO workload and encourage new people into leadership.

Allow them to spend time in other businesses — a lot can be learned by being in a fresh space.