On 20th November we hosted a wellness seminar, led by Michelle Flynn a qualified health and nutrition coach, looking at how our clients can improve their own wellbeing as well as the wellness of their employees.

Compliance Professionals decided that as a business we wanted to provide a topic that was related to recruitment but would add value to our client’s wellness, retention, and productivity strategies too. Having already used Michelle and other coaches for our internal staff we are well aware of the positive impact coaching has on employees. However, it wasn’t until we started investigating the topic that we realised just how large issue wellness represents to the British economy.

Two startling statistics:

Mental health issues cost employers £39.4 bn in absenteeism last year

15.4 million working days were lost due to work related stress, depression or anxiety in 2017/18

With technology having made such an impact on how we work in the last 20 years it is no surprise that people feel that they are burning out. The modern workplace culture is to work less hours in the office but be on call 24/7.

This is in stark contrast to when many of our team joined recruitment, then mobile phones were a luxury and if you did have one work would never dream of calling you on it after hours. When you left the office you physically stopped work. Holidays were just that a complete break from the office and a chance to recharge the batteries, nowadays we may reduce the time we spend responding to emails and messages, but we never switch off.

If you want to attract and retain staff then you as a leader or as an organisation need to make changes to ensure that you are promoting wellness within the workplace.

What were the learnings from our Wellness Seminar?

1, Any initiative that involves a break in the normal working pattern has to be driven from the top. If the Directors don’t participate and engage then your staff will feel anxious about participating. Paradoxically the pool table, ping pong table or walking group you have signed off on to reduce stress and anxiety levels may actually be increasing them.

2, There is a vast difference in the benefits financial services firms offer in the way of wellness. If you are serious about recruitment and retention, then all firms need to have employee wellness as a priority during 2020.

3, From our feedback on the event everyone who attended felt that they could benefit from additional coaching. Easy solutions to this would be to provide in house wellness seminars or offer coaching allowances as part of your package.

4, Small changes make all the difference, ensure your staff take breaks from the desk during the day and not contact them when they are on holiday. Two small but effective changes that will see a big change in employee wellness.

Post our Wellness Seminar

Marcus Courtney Managing Director of Compliance Professionals and its sister company Saxton Leigh is committed to reviewing our companies own wellness.

Wellness is not our only focus, this year we will be actively pushing our Diversity Drive ensuring that like most businesses, diversity and inclusion is one of our biggest priorities for 2022. We are therefore committed to promoting workplace diversity and inclusion through our website, documentation and social media. We want our diversity and inclusion drive to be honest and authentic, evolving though our learnings.

Want to learn more on our Diversity Drive?

Get in contact with our team who all stand by this important message.

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