We built a thriving workplace community and you can too

In 2011, the university sector was going through a significant period of change.

Pension arrangements were being changed or closed for tens of thousands of colleagues across-sector due to significant deficits. As you would expect, the move saw nationwide industrial action, and employee engagement was at an all-time low.

Why are we telling you this? Because times of adversity are often the best times to make changes for the better.

We were a small wellbeing team at the University of Sheffield, a founding Russell Group university and an employer of c7,200 colleagues at the time. Based in South Yorkshire, we had several competitors around us (Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, York, and Birmingham to name a few) who offered similar employment opportunities to us.

With a primary focus on our employee value proposition and a side eye on competitive advantage, our aim was to create a community at the University of Sheffield that people wanted to be a part of and remain a part of. We wanted to show our people, authentically, that we were all impacted by these changes, we cared about their wellbeing, and we celebrated and championed what made them, them.

Community is the key word.

Instead of going for the latest “in” thing at the time, which was, and perhaps still is, offering ultra-tailored online fitness routines and mindfulness apps, we forged our own path. There’s nothing wrong with these types of offerings, they just didn’t align to our “why”.

We knew that the University was full of silos where colleagues rarely engaged with others outside of their immediate reports or teams. We had around 7,200 colleagues with their own hobbies, interests, and passions; why couldn’t we encourage, enable, and celebrate them?

We wanted to bring people together socially through shared experiences and common interests. So that’s what we did.

First, we needed to make sure that the infrastructure was there so our wellbeing proposition was scalable with a small team, so Juice was born.

We brought everything together under one online roof using a single easily recognisable identity, which made communication simple. We knew that as the offer grew so would the amount of work to manage it, so we automated the booking process for all activities and events enabling us to spend more time “on” the project rather than “in” the project.

We launched Juice in 2012 with c1,000 colleagues as a pilot offering three activities; Bootcamp, Tai Chi, and Body Health Checks. It was a small programme to cover most bases whilst we tested the “market”.

Engagement in Juice during the pilot was so strong that it very quickly spread outside of our pilot group, and we were forced into a very quick full launch across the University.

Not a bad problem to have.

The next phase was to expand, and the best way to do it was to listen to our people.

Instead of just resting on our assumptions or delving into existing data sets, we went out into the University and asked what wellbeing meant to our people, teams, and departments.

We soon learned that there was already a great deal of activities, events, and hobby sharing going on within Faculties and Departments. It was a case of working with these remarkable individuals and teams, enabling them to share their passions more widely, and to take care of all the admin on their behalf. Afterall, that was our job.

To date, Juice has seen colleagues share their passions for running, hill walking, cycling, sword dancing, ballroom dancing, reading, knitting, sewing, Scalectrix, Lego, colouring, guide dog puppy walking, local history, singing, beer tasting, music; the list goes on.

So, how can you apply this story to your own organisation?

If you take three things away, make them these:

1. Make accessing your wellbeing provision as simple as possible. If colleagues don’t know it’s there then they won’t look for it.
2. Start small, you don’t need a massive social wellbeing programme to make a difference. Look at what you already have in place, fix lesson number one, and tell people about it.
3. Listen to your people and act on what they say. Wellbeing is important to all of us, but what wellbeing means is different to everyone. Enable, encourage, and celebrate what makes them, them.

What hidden hobbies, interests, and passions will you uncover within your own workplace community?

Everyday Juice Limited

We believe that everyone has the right to be healthy and happy at work, connected to a community of colleagues who are passionate about making a positive impact on themselves and the workplace.

If you want to create a remarkable place to work for your employees, why not?get in touch.