OUR CULTURE STORY | AUTUMN 2019 20
WELLBEING CHAPTER NINE
We want to create a positive working environment, where our people can thrive, are happy and bring their best selves to work each day. Our lives, both inside and outside of work can be hectic, exhilarating, challenging, relaxing, fun, overwhelming and often many of those things all at once. We know we’re each more effective at our job if we’re feeling refreshed after a holiday, are feeling energised by a lunchtime walk, run or yoga, don’t spend all afternoon worrying whether we’ll be home by our child’s bedtime, or simply know we’re supported in trying to find more headspace in a world that moves at a rapid pace with ‘information overload’. We launched a newWellbeing programme across BDO in 2017 using the ‘5 Ways of Wellbeing’ as our framework. Our network of Wellbeing Champions across the firm continue to share ideas and stories about how to improve our mental resilience and physical health in the workplace. And we launched firm-resilience training – called Performance Under Pressure – to further support our people to navigate through the fast-paced world around them. We continue to show our support for Mental Health Awareness Week, with many of our people sharing their personal connections with mental health challenges and proudly wearing the Green Ribbons to support the #EndTheStigma campaign. This is a journey and we are proud to share our story so far.
DOINGWELL ONWELLBEING
Mental health has been a focus and we have celebrated Mental Health Awareness Week and World Mental Health Day. Recognising we are not experts in this space, we work closely with those who are, including MIND with whom we have worked closely for many years. We have started to train mental health first aiders – our U Board all volunteered to be the first to be trained, demonstrating our senior leaders’ commitments to this agenda. Our 32 Wellbeing Champions continue to be passionate about wellbeing and locally championing our wellbeing strategy and promoting the 5 Ways of Wellbeing. We achieved a Silver Award in the MINDWorkplace Wellbeing Index in recognition for our increased focus on Wellbeing – an improvement since last year’s Bronze Award. More than 1,000 people took part in our firm-wide Step Challenge, stepping 265 million steps across the UK in May. We were so pleased with the engagement with the Challenge, but even more with personal and team achievements that followed. BDO’s National Football Tournament was the most popular ever this year, with 505 of BDO’s colleagues making the journey to London to play a series of men’s and women’s football games over the weekend.
Seats for our resilience training – called ‘Performance Under Pressure’ – sold out in record time. We ran 24 classes over the 12 months.
NICOLA ELAKEL Wellbeing Adviser in our HR team and cat fan Our Listening Programme tells us we’re doing better at giving people ‘headspace’, so our Wellbeing Programme is really helping to embed a culture where our people feel supported and valued. But we also know we’re getting unprecedented requests to pitch for more work, so we’re keeping a close eye on that.”
chapter nine
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