What Wellbeing initiatives do you have in your workplace?

[NormalForNuneaton]

I wasn't sure whether to post here or in general chat but that board is just so fast moving it will probably just disappear too quickly.

I was wondering what wellbeing initiatives you have in your workplaces, especially larger workplaces (around 200-400 staff for example) as there are probably some good ideas out there that more organisations and businesses could put into practice.

On site gym with daily spin, HIIT and yoga.

EAP

Flexi

on site restaurant, not sure it's subsidised but it's good value.

on site ATM

The only things I've seen as perks are discounted gym, and £120 towards any course or subscription - didn't have to be work related - and household emergency leave.

I don't want to be massaged or do yoga at my workplace.

Really the best thing for any company is proper staffing levels, decent compassionate and bereavement leave, the household emergency leave, no hot desking, ideally less open plan, quiet places you can go to do anything requiring concentration, proper home working. Those are basics really.

Of course it all depends on the type of organisation but most of what I've been offered as a perk, I didn't want. Never had free fruit, would be nice but I imagine it's hard to calculate and might lead to wastage. Private health would be great.

i don't see staff dos or wellbeing talks as a perk at all.

I work in a private school non teaching role.

We have the following for all staff and all for free.. meals on duty, tea coffee cake and fruit, pool, gym, sick pay, fair rate of pay, obviously good holidays, well-being sessions on yoga, and menopause each week, mental health 1st aid training, employee assistance programme, voucher at Christmas.

Good selection of benefits but you do work long hours split over 7 days.

@MustBeGinOclock can I ask about the menopause sessions and what they involve please.

We have good sick leave and occupational health is taken pretty seriously in the organisation. We have flexible working.

However we have our share of empty words as well.

The best place I worked for wellbeing had a communal (entirely voluntary) coffee break each day. It was absolutely brilliant for getting to know people in a very low pressure way. Also if you had to ask someone a work question you knew where you could catch them, so it cut down on emails and waiting for the little things.

I don't know because I don't use them, tbh !!
I never heard the phrase "Employee Assistance Programme" before. I would have guessed that was a cash hardship fund.

About 2000 people work for my employer but a lot of hybrid staff, so maybe only 1000 on site some part of most week days. The cleaners are gone by 10am, and security or bar staff may not start until 6pm. So they won't get involved in the wellbeing initiatives... maybe 500-700 staff who are there all of 9-5(ish) on an average week day.

We have very pretty open spaces on site, so There are walking groups, walking with dogs, meditation & yoga sessions. A big rec sports facility adjacent with its own events. There's a huge amount of claptrap attention on menopause right now, too. Special seminars about that where I imagine people find camaraderie.

Offering free milk, tea & coffee stops clutter and 55 ancient milk containers going off in fridges. Offering fridges stops stinking food in offices. Those are not wellbeing initiatives, just perks/sensible environmental management. I feel same about things like flexi-working or the occasional free lunch. Those aren't wellbeing initiatives, either.

Similar to @MiddleSaged's offering but what would actually make a difference is what @ItsNotJustaBunFightItsanAIBUBunfight said. We have lots of online networks, good team leads etc but what would actually help is decent pay and more staff to do the ever-increasing amount of work. Recruitment and retention is a major issue.

Private healthcare access -has nutritional appointments, gp appointments, yearly health check, 2nd opinion appointments, for bith us and our dependents
Wagestream to enable ppl to take their wage early if needed
Minority support groups/networks, LGBTQ networks
Free flu jab
Free eye check
Menopause support (have to look into this further!!)
Discounted gym membership
Plus employee discount program that covers things like asda, currys, samsung etc as well as on site.

We give everyone too much work then constantly ask each other if we're ok. It kind of works.

I shouldn't think you could make than an organisational policy though.

We have a half hour wellbeing break each week, we can choose when, as long as not in a meeting or something else that is preplanned and can be used for whatever we want.

We also have a wellbeing section on our intranet, lots of exercise videos, courses etc
We get free therapy sessions and a generous discount on many brands

Employee assistance program
Funded counselling for all employees
Quarterly team lunch of choice where the phones are diverted for an hour (ordered in rather than a meal out)
Regular (fortnightly to monthly depending on role) manager meetings

We have an organisation-wide subscription to Headspace.

Regular free lunches for example if we've got a strategy meeting or workshop.

Monthly Thursday afternoon snacks (this used to be monthly birthday cake).

Plus we have an employee rep who does a monthly "office hours" drop in though of course we can email with any issues. No union though.

Of course free coffee and tea, a huge variety of teas.

Wellbeing fund of £500... which I later found out was taxed after spending 500 and getting only 'some' of it back.

It can be used for hobbies, theatre, gym, spa... anything that some awarding body deem 'good for your emotional state'

I had a colleague who wanted to buy a snake with it as they live animals and was told no :(

Mine, none, tiny company but very flexible.

DH, 'big' company 5000+ employees:

• £200 per year for self-improvement, DH used his on golf lessons
• £200 per year for wellbeing, DH used his on a winter coat & walking shoes
• Finish at lunchtime last Friday of the month
• 3 days off per year for charity volunteering
• Encouraged to take 1 hour per week to do something like go for a walk/gym class/swim etc

Employee Assistance Programme.
Mental health drop-in sessions.
Free access to Headspace app.

But what we’d like more is a pay rise. Haven’t had one for years.

EAP (which includes counselling for mental health, bereavement, finances, health issues, etc. And could be used by family, not just the employee.)
Subsidised gym
Subsidised massages
Weekly fruit/healthy snacks trolley
Free tea & coffee
Various resource groups such as women, LGB, parents & carers, ethnic minorities (clubs had budget so could arrange speakers or other events)
Some clubs e.g. cricket, Toastmasters
Environmental group
Lots of charitable support - for team building and local community presence. If you were prepared to jump through the paperwork hoops, you could get your local charity supported, which would mean any fundraising you did was matched, which was used by a lot of people who supported their child's scout group or sports club or whatever. You could get paid time off for some charitable activities by agreement, including school governors.

Also flexible time, option to buy extra holiday. Enhanced maternity, paternity, carers leave.

Subsidised study (for work-related courses that weren't a core part of your job.)

And also enhanced redundancy, which is why I don't work for them any more...

I saw a really interesting post from a CE on Linkedin the other day (not the CE of my place of work, sadly!) who was planning to run an away day with their team to solely discuss and take action on the issue of workload.

Their rationale was that wellbeing initiatives are basically doomed to fail if staff are dropping like flies due to stress caused by unreasonable workloads. I wanted to print this post and stick it up on the wall in the office!!

Flexible working and only 1 day a week required in the office. This means I only work 4 days a week, but get paid 90%, not 80%.

200 euro budget to spend on sport or health. I spent mine on tennis shoes and sports clothes.

We actually have quite a few!

We have several company perks / benefits which include

• discounted breakdown cover
• simply health (private health insurance although it's not the best it's better than nothing!)
• award nights every year
• PAM assistance for counselling etc if required
• one team day events company paid and up to us what we do within budget
• well-being machines and people to go through them with you
• Enhanced maternity - full pay for 6m
• enhanced paternity
• volunteer days (3 a year I think)
• yearly increments plus cost of living increments
• charity events
• payments for length of service (10,20,30,40+50 years)
• discount gym membership

There are so many more and it's definitely part of the reason the company I work for is. There's a reason they're in the top 10 on bestcompanies to work for 😂

@febbabies2023 What is a wellbeing machine?!

My school have run sessions (optional after school) on ways to reduce workload, dealing with anxiety etc.

They've been quite popular.

A lot of talk, not a lot of doing!
We have 4 mental health first aiders, but they aren’t the people you’d actually want to go to if you were struggling! (1 is HR, 1 is a known gossip, one is the centre of a clique so I can’t see anyone outside of that clique ever trying to speak to her, the final one is male (must give the men someone to talk to!) and a lovely chap but is never available when you need them for work related things never mind a mental health chat!)

It's an interactive health kiosk - basically does things like your height, weight, BMI, blood pressure etc and tells you if you'd need to possibly seek medical dependant on those results. We don't have it all the time but it comes 3/4 times a year and normally someone comes in to do 'follow ups' if you wanted to, to discuss I guess!