Staff wellbeing ideas

[QueenArnica]

Hi all,

Have posted this in The Staffroom but thought I’d be cheeky and post for traffic here too.
Have a zoom meeting on Monday as am
part of a group at school (primary) tasked with staff wellbeing. Minuscule budget and need to make it meaningful. Does anyone have any best practice/tips/ideas of things that work in their school. Need to cover current times (lockdown) and when we’re all back in school.

Alternatively anyone work in a business that has inexpensive ideas to promote staff wellbeing that I could adapt for school?

Thanks so much in advance.

I've been teaching 15 years. I couldn't give a monkeys about biscuits/ coffee etc. I want to be able to leave on time and have better WLB

The only time food etc would be appreciated is after a long evening event (when all this is over) lunch delivered to my classroom (ie I don't have to make a packed lunch the night before)

Boss raffles "free" hour to staff. No strings attached, covered by boss, to be taken whenever. It might mean a staff member being able to come in late having dropped off their kids or being able to leave early to get to an appointment.

I recently organised a coffee morning for one of my teams. We booked a room offsite at a local hotel, where we could comfortably distance, everyone's classes were covered by subs, and we got to chat & socialise properly for the first time since March. They're a group that have volunteered for a particularly draining bit of extra work, and I wanted to acknowledge that.

As previous posters have pointed out, though, wellbeing is a culture, not a poster. Always, always thank/acknowledge people when they do things. At the end of a meeting, thanks for attending, thanks for your input. Management should catch staff being good and acknowledge that. A sincere verbal thanks costs nothing but is more meaningful than a box of sweets.

Give people the opportunity to be heard and involved in decision-making. Make opportunities for collaboration within the working day & encourage sharing so that work doesn't need to be duplicated. Only engage in purposeful work/training. Make sure that people are taking their breaks!

We did Secret Santa but with messages instead of gifts - so everyone was allocated another member of the team and wrote them an appreciative anonymous message. That was lovely.

Small treats like Posh Biscuits Friday or whatever are also usually appreciated. And there will be some people who enjoy a baking competition or whatever, it just has to be entirely voluntary,.

You could put a "wellbeing" meeting in the diary for the end of the week - 3.30 on Friday or whatever - everyone will moan dreadfully - then start the meeting with the head spending 2 minutes saying how amazing everyone has been and telling them they should log off now and enjoy their weekend.

Headspace is now on Netflix. Could signpost people there as a resource

wellbeingatworksouthwest has a lot of information although they only work with businesses in Plymouth there are some useful resources on their website. Google wellbeing at work too and lots of things come up.

Things that I appreciate from my organisation: acknowledgement of extra effort/completing a difficult task; celebrating success and not focusing entirely on negative things; having a quiet space available where people can go and have a few minutes to themselves to sit down and think away from work (if in the office); ad hoc gift vouchers to recognise effort/a good job; paying for access to resources that aim to help your mental health (Woebot, etc); proper communication about what is going on instead of trying to hide/disguise bad news; occasional cake/biscuits/treats; staff seminars about different aspects of wellbeing; sharing staff stories of difficult subjects (depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts) from staff that are willing to share their experiences; allowing every staff member to take a wellbeing day to do whatever they like away from work.

Things I don't really care for: everyone sharing something they're proud of/a success story in a group call if you don't want to; work yoga/meditation classes that are not optional.

This is just OFSTED box ticking and it really pisses me off. We are professionals who don’t need well-being yoga sessions or biscuits. It’s insulting and naff.
What we need is a little acknowledgment from SLT every now and then. A ‘you did a really good job on this...’ or ‘I like the way you did ...’ really go a long way. Along with sensible marking policies and sensible length of meeting times.
Our SENCO has started a ‘well-being’ newsletter. It’s so patronising. I’d much rather she’d complete the dyslexia assessment I’ve been asking her to do all year instead!

I agree don’t talk up resilience. In my work we have staff boasting they just must have greater resilience. It is very annoying

When companies start the "wellbeing" nonsense- yoga classes, stress management classes- it's a sign there's something really wrong. Usually if your staff are unhappy it's because of things like low pay, bullying, bad work environment eg open plan, demeaning work, bad management.

Flexitime is one of the free benefits companies can give that can improve life for workers.

I hate these things. I'm pro wellbeing, obviously, but it always seems that the leadership teams promoting these things usually aren't doing anything to solve the problems in the first place.

I'd like to complete a document which has been annonymised (you can even do these live so literally noone sees who wrote what) and send it to management. The a non-work related activity.

If its a grouo where everyone knows everyone you could do a names in a hat in advance and you have to anonymously write something noce about the name you draw. 'Miss X is great at helping new staff develop course materials...'

Maybe send an anonymous survey to staff about what would help their well-being rather than us ransoms on MN.

We got sent a staff well-being survey where SLT wanted us to say what we were struggling with, etc. First question? What is your name?

None of us were honest because it wasn’t anonymous.

How about giving every member of staff an opportunity to write,anonymously, a paragraph saying exactly what would help them and ask the SLT to read them and take notice?

I suspect different people will want different things. Then give a range of small ‘bonuses’ they can choose from. Could be an hour of free time a week to do whatever they like, additional peer support, chocolate or whatever.

And regular, non judgmental debriefing.

Don’t waste your time. If you need a wellbeing action group, your school is already disfunctional.

What works:
a) A leader who can strip away the unnecessary, so staff can focus quality time on the important
b) Strategies for working smarter, not harder
c) Consideration for the personal, not the corporate

Thanks so much for your responses, lots of food for thought

I hate the enforced wellbeing shite.

Our last one was a calm room and an afternoon where some activities were put on. Therapist, hand massages etc.

Only no one could attend as it was so so busy and staffing so poor.

I like a heartfelt genuine thanks off my manager. A simple email outlining good work is nice too.

We have found a real mixture of things are needed because everyone is feeling differently and what works for one, bombs for someone else. e.g. for each person who loves an online tea break and quiz, someone else detests it.

We are all working from home and have been since last March. Here is a list of what we do. They won't work for all workplaces.

• we ended timesheets. people are to focus on outputs rather than hours completed. when work is done, finish for the day
• if your va va voom has gone for the day, then come back tomorrow instead
• we have an online walking challenge where people have a light touch competitive logging of their daily steps
• during full lockdown we reduce to a 4 day working week (this can be spread across the week or taken as a day
• if you need to take an hour or so to home school or fetch a relatives shopping then you take it
• weekly online zoom tea break, participation is voluntary, no work chat
• my team meet day online at 10am to check in
• i sent my team each a gift from hotel chocolat at the end of one of our worst weeks to say thank you (I paid for it)
• lots of reminders about our confidential free counselling service
• regular sharing of other wellbeing resources

We are hanging on by our fingernails so there is no money for anything else.

Please no inspirational quotes.
No star of week/ month, whatever. Tends to be the same people.

Don't get the kids to write appreciation notes. It's shit when you're new to a school /or old in a school and all the kids love the teacher who lets them do what they want. Or the teacher who teaches yr7 gets millions, but the teacher with the hardened, cynical older teens get done

Agreed that most of the ‘well being’ initiatives are a box ticking exercise.

I think most what school staff want, and which actually helps with wellbeing, is clear, consistent and concise sharing of information so that everyone is in the picture. Hearing rumours and third hand information is really unhelpful.

Absolutely agree that acknowledging what staff are doing, particularly at the moment, is so, so important.

I’d take a ‘thank you’ over a box of biscuits any day.

Online book vouchers or providing batches of some current bestsellers. Book sharing is probably impossible now but access to a range of books is a lovely treat.

Anything that adds extra pressure or expectations of any kind is a no from me. There are enough things to be committed to at the moment without adding additional pressure when well bring may already be struggling. A simple thank you card in the post was appreciated by me and other small items posted with a thank you.

Weekly wellbeing hour (or 2 hours a fortnight). We have this at my workplace. I start late every other Monday, a workmate finishes early every other Friday. Actually feels like a perk. That fortnightly lie in is ace.

Our head set up some online thing and invited parents to submit any positive feedback they would like there. After a week, she collated it all in a document and emailed it to all the staff.

We have bake-offs that contribute house points (and we get to eat 'clean' home baking if you know you know), mini sport events after school that the kids can hang around to watch. We have a healthy living ambassador that ran a kind of 'get out there' type thing - send a pic of your daily exercise which was uploaded to the school twitter feed, which actually encouraged lots of kids to get some fresh air
OMFG. I’d have to resign. This is all shit, shit, shit and just adds pressure. House points? I’m not 12. Baking? No thanks, if I liked doing it I’d fucking do it. Sport? Ditto. And if I did I wouldn’t want kids bloody watching. My daily exercise on twitter? Fuck off.
Does anyone really think this stuff is appropriate for professional adults? If they say it’s lovely it’s only because they fear the backlash. They hate you and your well-being team to the core if their being @Ffsffsffsffsffs

We have said that all staff must be off site by 4.30pm (does not apply to senior staff!)
Means nothing @HelenaJustina
You just make them break their flow and take work home to do where it might not be as easy. Or when they might not want to ‘infect’ their home with school work. Don’t reduce the time in school, reduce the workload so they don’t need the time in school.

In the olden days, I worked in a school with a lunch break of over an hour. One year, in the summer, someone brought in a posh garden game and played on the grass in front of the school. The kids couldn't see it. People at first found it amusing then wanted a go.

It grew into a yearly, high stakes tournament with a bottle of pimms for the winning team. Kids were fascinated but bemused ,, as their teachers scarpered every day. at StThere were match up dates every Monday in the briefing notes. That was fabulous for well being, but completely unorchestrated. It died when our lunch got cut.