The Watch Newsletter - Autumn 2024

Your snapshot of wellbeing news and strategies to create a healthier workplace.

Welcome to the Autumn edition of The Watch. We hope you have settled into the year well, with good habits, intentions and systems in place to support the wellbeing of yourself and your staff.

We’ve received some wonderful feedback from you all about our newsletter, and we appreciate every bit of feedback you might feel motivated to send our way. Thank you!

Autumn is a special time of year and it’s also a time when we start to knuckle down into the business-as-usual processes at work, and sometimes, we may struggle to keep up the momentum of the good intentions we created over the summer and new year period.

If that is the case for you, then this is your nudge to re-focus your energy, and re-direct your attention to the wellbeing of your people, which is an area where the benefits far outweigh the input.

Keeping focused on supporting wellbeing for yourself and your people has a significant impact on sustaining productivity throughout the whole year.

So here are a few strategies to help you do just that!

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In this edition of The Watch, we’ll have:

• Wellbeing Wisdom: Are your strengths hidden? Try some strengths spotting.
• Growth Corner: World Wellbeing Movement’s Work Wellbeing Playbook - key insights of evidence-based interventions that work.
• Healthy Workplace Heroes: Barossa Australia’s Healthy Workplaces Grant Funding Project.
• Stay Informed: Safe Work Australia’s Psychological Health & Safety in the Workplace Report February 2024.
• Actions for Wellbeing: Watch. Read. Explore.

Forward to a friend

Wellbeing Wisdom

Your evidence-based insights at your fingertips.

Strengths spotting - in ourselves and others.

We often think of strengths as something we’re good at, or something we may have earned a reputation for being good at. But this isn’t always, and often isn’t, the case.

Sometimes, we develop skills that we’re good at but we don’t enjoy doing them. We refer to these types of skills as ‘learned behaviours’ and if we’re having to use them all of the time they can quickly become de-energising and lead to feelings of burnout.

For us to stay motivated and remain energised, it’s essential to identify those skills that we’re good at and that we enjoy doing; these are our real ‘strengths’.

Research shows us that when we’re using our strengths, our performance lifts. And not only is our performance higher, so too are our levels of health and wellbeing. This upward spiral also has a positive impact on the performance of those around us. (Mubashar & Harzer, 2023)

Being able to leverage our strengths has the power to transform our own lives and work as well as the lives and work of those around us.

So, how do we identify strengths in ourselves and, as managers, how do we unlock potential in our people?

We can try spotting strengths using clues such as these:

• Childhood memories - what do you remember doing as a child that you still do now, but most likely much better?
• What activities give you an energetic buzz when you’re doing them?
• When do you feel most like the ‘real you’, your authentic self?
• Are there activities that come naturally to you or what things can you learn almost effortlessly?
• Do you notice a shift in your voice tone or body language, and do your eyes light up when you’re talking about something?
• Or perhaps, like me, are there things that never make your ‘to-do list’ because you’ve already done them?

At Workplace Wellbeing SA we use a psychometric assessment tool to help our clients identify their strengths, both at the individual and team level.

And we’ve made it easier for organisations to take the first step to building a strengths-based approach for higher employee wellbeing and performance.

Our strengths program enables participants to identify skills that are energising and those that are de-energising. Better still, we provide leaders with the practical support to help them unlock potential and bring out the best in their people.

Find out more about our strengths workshop HERE or watch this 2-minute video to hear how our strengths program helped Purple Giraffe to retain great staff!

Watch Video from Purple Giraffe

Growth Corner

Your watch on events, initiatives and grants to boost your workplace wellbeing.

World Wellbeing Movement’s Work Wellbeing Playbook

The Word Wellbeing Movement has created a fantastic new resource which we’re loving, the Work Wellbeing Playbook is a collation and curation of evidence based practices that are known to create a significant and impactful change within workplaces.

This playbook is jam-packed with interventions across 12 domains, that leaders can pick up and start to implement right away. What we love about it is it takes a holistic and systemic view towards supporting wellbeing for employees, which makes a powerful and impactful combination.

The Playbook recommends that ‘only once you have started to measure how your employees are feeling will you be able to implement science-based strategies to improve wellbeing in your organisation.’

We agree!  That’s why we enable our clients to take a baseline workplace wellbeing measurement as the first step in designing a tailored wellbeing strategy. Then, and only then, we match science-based interventions similar to those found in the Playbook, to meet the specific needs of their employees.

Want to find out how we can help you to measure employee wellbeing? Simply book a mutually convenient time for us to have a chat HERE.  

Access the Work Wellbeing Playbook

Healthy Workplace Heroes

Feel-good stories from workplaces kicking goals.

Collaborating with Barossa Australia in late 2023, we were thrilled to win grant funding through the Healthy Workplaces Strategy Grants Program, funded by Preventive Health SA and administered by SA Business Chamber.

This much-needed funding provided members of Barossa Australia with an opportunity to attend in-person workshops aimed at supporting both growers and wine companies/tourism operators.

Working closely with Viticultural Development Manager, Nicki Robins, to roll-out this bespoke regional program (consisting of three grower events and two strategic workplace wellbeing workshops), we reached over 70 grape growers and engaged with 15 wineries to provide them with practical wellbeing support.

It was a joy to receive feedback such as this …

"The workshop was useful for us as a small family business to kickstart our journey with health and wellbeing. It can be overwhelming but now I feel confident to start and execute."

"I found the session engaging and helpful and Bec was able to tailor her approach and advice to varied types of entities (small business/corporation) on the hop which was much appreciated. The tools and information provided will be helpful to increase understanding and knowledge to share with upper management."

📸 Representatives from Rockford Wines, Thorn-Clarke Wines, Chateau Tanunda, Greenock Creek Wines, Henschke Wines, Torbreck Wines and Whistler Wines at the stunning Barossa Cellar, Wellbeing Strategy Workshop 1 February 2024.

Stay Informed

Keep up to date with WHS legislation, new research and global knowledge.

Safe Work Australia have recently released their data insights report Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace (February 2024) with some sobering statistics.

This report states that the most common type of mental health condition claim in 2021-22 was anxiety and stress disorders at 45.8%.

They also report that the median compensation paid for mental health conditions was $58,615 for serious claims, and that time off for same claim was also 34.8 weeks compared with 8 working weeks for all injuries and diseases.

For workplaces that might be sitting on the fence about investing in the mental and psychological wellbeing of their people, this report is a must read. Some stats we found significant are:

• In 2020-21, the median compensation paid for mental health conditions was $58,615 per serious claim compared to $15,743 per serious claim for all injuries and diseases.
• Mental health conditions claims had an impact on productivity for 34.2 working weeks per serious claim compared to 8.0 working weeks per serious claim for all injuries and diseases.

Learn how to safeguard your employees against stress-related risks. Click HERE to find out more.

Download the Safe Work Australia Report

Actions for Wellbeing

Practical tips and tools to help you care for your wellbeing

// WATCH

If you’re a sleep geek like me then you’ll love watching Australia’s Sleep Revolution with Dr Michael Moseley. Check out this three-part series on Australia’s world-first sleep treatment program developed by the Flinders University Sleep Institute. Watch on SBS HERE.

// READ

The latest findings on the happiness of the world’s young, the old – and everyone in between can be found in the new World Happiness Report 2024.  The good news is that Australia’s ranking has moved up a few notches to 10th place (from 12th).  The report also looks at global aging and found that “higher levels of wellbeing have been robustly associated with lower risk for future dementia, suggesting that increasing wellbeing may be a promising non-pharmacological approach to dementia prevention”. Just another good reason to keep on nudging your loved ones to take care of their wellbeing.

// EXPLORE

If you’ve enjoyed reading Atomic Habits by James Clear (or gained value from his habit stacking hack in our last newsletter), then you’re going to love his new App ATOMS.  This App uses all of the wonderful insights of the book, and puts them right into the palm of your hand – via your phone. The App will nudge you to remember to do the things you know you need to, but struggle to prioritise.

It connects your what with your why, in a really tangible and meaningful way. We love its simplicity, its granular approach to building wellbeing, and it gets a big tick from us here at Workplace Wellbeing SA!

(L-R Digital Resilience Healthy People Workshop, Wellbeing Strategy for Kangaroo Island Business & Brand Alliance, Konecranes Workshop, a great read - Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman, videoing the Wellbeing Essentials mini-course, Barossa Australia grape grower workshop, Italia Ceramics Mindful Breathwork Workshop with Kym Burls)

We hope that some of these strategies, tips and tools might just have inspired you (or at least given you the nudge you needed) to re-focus your energy, and re-direct your attention to the wellbeing of yourself and your people.

Until next time, keep well!

Cheers,

Bec and the team at Workplace Wellbeing SA