Why Employee Wellbeing Can’t Thrive Without Inclusion

When reviewing an organisation’s approach to wellbeing it’s easy to focus on strands such as resilience training, employee perks, healthy lifestyle initiatives, fun activities and an employee assistance programme, all of which can have a significant impact and assist with the journey to a a mentally and physically 'well' workforce, but without also casting a critical eye over the practices, policies and wider culture, implementing these things alone is unlikely to have a substantial or lasting impact. Without a positive and embedded approach to equality, diversity and inclusion, a wellbeing policy may be superficial and even disingenuous. Creating a sense of 'belonging' through inclusive practices may be far more effective, this is what we started with at Fircroft.

Fircroft College of Adult Education provides transformative education for people who have faced multiple barriers and disadvantage in their lives, we change people's lives. This means our environment has to be highly inclusive for our students and workforce. Our employees are our most critical asset in achieving an inclusive culture and high levels of wellbeing in our workforce has had a huge impact on our service provision.

In 2016 just 36% of employees were satisfied with the college culture, we had high levels of grievances, high absence rates and employee wellbeing was low.

Shortly after this survey was taken we embarked on a transformation change programme to increase wellbeing, engagement and inclusion in our college. This started with asking our employees to create new College behaviours and values; we then put these at the heart of everything we do. 

We developed a diverse Employee Voice team whom were consulted about the changes, they suggested innovative wellbeing initiatives such as wellbeing champions. We also developed a Health and Wellbeing working group involving stakeholders at all levels. Consultation and communication was key as people were involved in and engaged in what we were trying to achieve.

We reviewed and updated all of our policies, practices and procedures with a clear focus on whether equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) was truly embedded, creating a diverse EDI team who amongst other things carry out ‘equality impact assessments’ on all policies and processes.

Clear wins in our policy review included our Training and Development Policy which used to just focus on one group of staff mainly. The links between personal development and better wellbeing and mental health are well researched. Investing in an inclusive staff development programme has ensured all employees feel valued, accomplished and have the opportunity to develop and grow, with a growth mindset.

Our flexible working policy was also essential for increasing inclusions and employee wellbeing; we now have flexitime, offer roles on a part or full time basis and have home working options. Because of this our workforce is more committed, devoted and flexible to the needs of our 24/7 business. Not only is this in line with our mission of social justice, aiding societal gender equality but it frees up office space, saving resources and allows us to recruit from a wider geographical location, a real win-win.

Our values are now visible in all areas of college life and embedded in the daily practices, policies and procedures. This has shifted the culture very quickly to one where staff feel supported, valued and inspired.

In this year’s engagement questionnaire, 96% of employees now stated that they were satisfied with our culture, a complete turnaround from last year. Staff wellbeing has significantly increased with the absence rate decreasing by 34% and no grievances to date.

What has allowed us to improve employee wellbeing so dramatically in such a short space of time was the way in which our values and EDI lens led the changes, in consultation with our workforce.

If there’s a focus on equality, diversity and inclusion at the heart of an organisation, wellbeing will naturally prosper. Without an inclusive culture any investment made in wellbeing will be undermined in other areas.

The business argument for inclusion is clear, implementing inclusive and supportive policies and practices, and investing in a positive company culture will naturally increase wellbeing, which in turn will improve performance, productivity, increase retention and reduce absence. It will attract and retain more diverse candidates, increasing the talent pool and adding to innovation and creativity in the organisation.

The CIPD website has some great resources if you would like to learn more about inclusive practices.