Wellbeing has moved up the agenda in recent years, which has been largely driven by employees who are seeking a better work/life balance and challenging the companies they work for to prioritise staff wellbeing. Care companies face a different and, possibly, bigger challenge. Outside of a corporate setting where yoga classes, flexible working and meditation apps might be the norm, we must consider how the care sector can embrace a culture of wellbeing that supports staff with as much emphasis as it places on its clients.
It starts with a subtle shift in mindset – that staff wellbeing should be as important as the wellbeing of people in care. After all, as Richard Branson said, ‘If you look after your staff – they’ll look after your customers.’ It sounds simple but taking meaningful action to support staff wellbeing takes time, patience and some creativity.
Understanding needs
If you’re embarking on a wellbeing journey with your team, then don’t announce an initiative without understanding what the individual needs are first. Too many companies launch wellbeing projects that have no connection to the real wellbeing needs of its employees and therefore wellbeing is often seen by the workforce as ‘fluffy’ and lacking substance.
Start with an anonymised survey, asking for detailed feedback on what would improve wellbeing. Focus on key areas of wellbeing such as financial, physical, emotional and social. Ask questions in a way that will give you valuable data and not just stats, such as:
- Do you have a particular financial concern around heating, food, buying school uniforms etc?
- Does your work cause you any physical discomfort such as bad back, sore feet etc?
- Do you ever feel anxious about coming to work? If so, why?
- What areas do you feel underconfident about in work?
- Were you part of any social clubs or have hobbies growing up?
- If you could spend a day off work doing things that fulfil you, what would you do?
These questions might seem strange; but could draw out patterns in staff wellbeing, such as a common financial concern. While you may not be able to directly support, you will have a clearer picture of the things weighing on your employees’ minds and may be able to provide educational resources or access external support.
Use these questions during supervisions to go deeper with individuals. By asking about where they might feel underconfident and anxious at work, it can help you to identify training needs and understand who might benefit from a mentor or buddy at work.
The questions around social wellbeing and understanding past hobbies can help you identify how to build community at work, either through social clubs or pairing team members with clients who have similar interests.
When you’ve finished gathering the results of the survey, find a way to present it back to your team. This is an important step to keeping them involved and informed, after all, the information is about them. Present the key findings in a meeting and write up some notes for a notice board or newsletter. Make three or four suggestions for next steps and ask for ideas from your team. It’s also worth keeping copies for your CQC evidence folder.
People first
The next step is to put together a plan that can be mapped over a year but broken down into quarters and months. This will ensure that wellbeing stays as a priority and doesn’t ‘drop off’ after the initial buzz and momentum dies down. This will also mean that wellbeing gets sewn through the culture of the company, rather than being a one-off initiative that doesn’t materialise into real, tangible results.
Our research has found three common wellbeing areas that often require development for care staff. They are:
- Self-esteem.
- Self-criticism.
- Personal stress.
I’m prepared to say that building confidence and increasing self-esteem should be the number one priority of any care company when it comes to wellbeing.
By placing an emphasis on this, you will build a team of self-leaders who are comfortable in themselves and their ability to make decisions and this can reduce the pressure on management, freeing them up to focus on more strategic areas of the business.
Self-esteem is about how people feel about themselves and how they value themselves. This can be a challenge in a sector that is often portrayed negatively by the media and where there is so much compliance and awareness around what’s a risk, unsafe, or wrong. Of course, compliance is essential for safety, but it does mean a lot of focus within care is on the negative instead of the positive.
How can you increase positivity in your team and build self-esteem? On a collective basis, start by introducing some positive markers. Encourage the team to share their successes, including what went well that day, what someone else did that was great and what they did that was great. Promote the use of phrases such as ‘well done’ and ‘thank you’. Simple words that we don’t use enough. Every morning, remind staff to say ‘great job’ to someone else that day. It sounds cheesy but it’s a foundational building block to increasing positivity. It’s important that ALL staff are given the recognition, regardless of role or number of hours worked. A greater level of self-esteem amongst the whole team will undoubtedly aid retention.
Use any one-to-one time with staff to highlight their natural strengths and talents as you see them. They may be highly capable but underconfident in their abilities. Use a coaching style of leadership to encourage them to find solutions for themselves, ask open questions and resist the temptation to provide the answer. By doing this, you’ll build confidence in individuals and learn who you can empower more and who needs more attention and support.
This approach of seeking feedback and new ideas, encouraging appreciation and recognition within the team, coaching individuals and building trust and empathy, aligns with human-centred leadership. This is a leadership ethos that puts people first and can create a work environment where people and their wellbeing can flourish.
Building trust
It’s not possible to promote wellbeing within a company without also shining a spotlight on the culture and leadership. An environment without a good, people-focused leader will not foster a positive culture and, in turn, the wellbeing of individuals will likely be affected.
Wellbeing can very much be driven by the leader. It also helps to have a structure and plan to carry it through the year. Start by reviewing what you already do that might support wellbeing and make a note of anything that can be instantly added to your wellbeing plan.
Next, think about how you can incorporate wellbeing support into your one-to-one meetings. Being aware of whether someone is going through a difficult time and/or feeling low might mean you can make adjustments for them to make work easier during that time. It can also help prevent mistakes or compliance issues, which often happen when someone is under a lot of stress.
One of our clients offers its staff an off-record personal risk assessment. Any time a member of staff feels they are struggling with their mental health, they are able to talk it through with the manager, completely confidentially and the notes are not kept in their personal file. This has helped to build trust between the team and management and has had a positive impact on absence rates and compliance within the home.
For the wider team, having a library of personal development resources can be a great way to launch a culture of wellbeing. This can include books, podcasts and even YouTube videos and Ted Talks, which could be shared at the start of a week with a prompt for discussion at the end of the week. This opens the conversation about wellbeing with the team, creates buy-in and makes it an ongoing topic. Why not also create Wellbeing Champion roles to carry the initiative forward and collate resources on reducing
self-criticism, developing resilience and coping with stress.
Planning for success
Ultimately, wellbeing is not always linear. A member of staff might go through a difficult time and struggle to cope regardless of how many wellbeing initiatives you have in place. What’s important, is that you have built a culture where staff feel safe to share their struggles without judgement and can feel valued and understood by their employer.
If you can adopt a human-centred approach when building your wellbeing plan, by consulting and involving the team as much as possible and always considering both the collective and the individual, then this is the best chance of success.