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16 Sep 2019
by Tracey Newton

Practitioner view: Tracey Newton explains Yorkshire Building Society's approach to wellbeing

Colleagues play a vital role in everything we do. In return we work hard to make sure they feel respected, valued and proud to work for us. To support this, we have invested in a number of programmes helping all of our colleagues to thrive. Wellbeing has significant potential to support our colleagues to deliver our purpose of providing real help with real life; to our customers.

 

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Our wellbeing strategy has three elements – mental, physical and financial. The objectives are to increase awareness of mental health, mental ill-health, physical wellbeing and financial resilience; help our colleagues to stay well and to support them when they’re not; and build an inclusive culture where they feel able to bring their whole self to work. In turn, this will increase engagement, motivation and productivity, and therefore contribute to our success as an organisation.

This is what each element covers:

Mental health

Over the past year our strategy for addressing mental health has grown considerably. We began by initiating conversation about mental health by encouraging colleagues to share stories and signing the Time to Change Employer Pledge. Now our plan is more fully integrated. We have launched a new employee assistance programme, made available a new online mental health platform called Unmind, developed mental health awareness training for all colleagues, and launched bespoke training for senior leaders, HR, managers and union reps, in conjunction with the Mental Health Foundation.

Financial resilience

Supporting our colleagues to maintain or improve their financial wellbeing aligns with our core purpose, while employing colleagues who are ‘financially fit’ makes sound business sense. Our customers, members and regulatory body expect our colleagues to be in control of their own personal finances.

Our financial wellbeing programme is split into three key areas: education, ease of access to resources and products, and support for colleagues to help themselves when they get into difficulty.

We started the programme in early 2018 with a campaign to encourage colleagues to open up about their money worries and talk about how they have taken greater control of their finances. Since then, we have launched a Small Change, Big Savings calculator to help colleagues understand how small changes in their spending habits can lead to big savings over time. We have introduced a new employee benefit through Salary Finance enabling colleagues to pay off high cost debt or save directly from salary. We have also focused on helping colleagues save for and cope with unexpected financial burdens by providing information on retail discounts and alternatives to payday loans, giving them access to savings calculators and promoting relevant tools available through Unmind, the mental health support app.

Physical wellbeing

We have prioritised an area that our colleagues said they were struggling with – sleep. We have used apps such as Unmind and been sharing tips on how to get a healthy eight hours sleep.

Beyond that on other health themes, we have introduced restroom posters to promote hydration, created walking routes around our offices and walking meetings.

Through our leader-advocated, colleague-owned wellbeing approach, we are encouraging colleagues to be proactive in using tools and resources to support their own mental, physical and financial health.

The author is Tracey Newton, director of people performance, Yorkshire Building Society.

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