Embedding wellbeing at work NHS Digital case study
Jo Bland, head of strategic engagement and internal communications at NHS Digital, explains how authentic conversations and social activities support communications colleagues’ wellbeing. We tell people that it’s OK not to be OK Conversations about wellbeing have been alive in our profession for a while now. Communications can often feel at the pointy end of corporate roles, so we wanted to see what more we could do to look after each other. Then, of course, came Covid. Working in healthcare we have to prepare for incidents and had taken the precaution of thinking through some scenarios. That foresight helped us as a communications team put in place some business plans. But, like so many others, we still had the challenge of our normal ways of office-based working being switched to home-based working overnight.
Physically distant, socially close Our approach relied on close collaboration – everything we did was founded on a great HR approach. Our HR team boosted support for mental health and wellbeing, and introduced a series of policy easements aimed at minimising the pressures that colleagues undoubtedly would feel with changes to their lives. It’s been a tough and hectic time, and we’ve tried hard to acknowledge that in the comms team. We don’t profess to have all the answers though. Managers have tried to make a concerted effort to write to our comms colleagues personally to let everyone know ‘It’s OK not to be OK’. We’ve looked to regularly share links to useful information, such as details about our mental health first aiders and employee assistance programme. The message we want our comms colleagues to hear is: talk to us, talk to a colleague, talk to a friend, talk to a specialist, but don’t struggle alone. We have a long-standing improvement plan in place, aimed at making communications a better place to work, and we run a quarterly pulse survey for our comms colleagues, who work across all communication specialisms. We’ve included questions about wellbeing before, but from March it was more important than ever to understand how people are feeling.
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