Last week I was part of a panel discussion at the Business Well-Being Network Conference in central London – an annual event organised by my University spin-off company, Robertson Cooper. They host a UK-based network of well-being and HR professionals who are interested in sharing knowledge and experience – as part of the package members can attend various events throughout the year, as well as receiving research updates and an annual well-being report. Fellow speakers included the Government’s National Director for Health and Work, Dame Carol Black and the employee engagement expert, David Macleod.
I have to say it was great to see so many people coming together with the aim of working together across organisations to drive well-being up the corporate agenda. And it was especially good to see that people still consider this to be an important issue during these difficult economic times. It has long been my view that it’s critical for professionals working in this area to share their knowledge and experience freely and on an on-going basis. Seeing the passion of people in this field when they get together always inspires me and giving such people mechanisms to interact is critical. Now is the time to blend our extensive, existing knowledge-base with creative thinking and debate about new solutions and I saw plenty of examples of that last week. Well-Being practitioners are in a position to shape employee experience in organisations, but often they feel isolated and this is where they need the help of their peers.
I mentioned the Network’s Annual Well-Being Report above and I am very pleased to say that my colleagues at Robertson Cooper have given me permission to share the Introduction to the report with you via my blog. It focuses on the current UK context, including the key drivers for focusing on well-being, both in and out of the workplace. I hope you find this valuable in your day-to-day work.
You can download the introduction to the report here. The report is provided to members of The Business Well-Being Network as a benefit, but if you found this extract useful you can also buy it online. If you would like more information go to the Robertson Cooper Website.
The full report contains a section that focuses on organisational trends in well-being and the related concept of employee engagement, including new research findings that reveal how to leverage well-being to improve engagement levels. The final section focuses on the practicalities of how to improve well-being and provides tools for building the business case for investing in well-being and designing interventions to improve it. Finally there is an appendix which contains a review of the latest research evidence for the link between well-being and the bottom-line – great for helping you to convince senior managers of the value of investing in well-being.
I hope you find this information as useful as I found the conference.
