I know what some of you are thinking right now. Are you kidding me? Of course I’m not doing well. How could I be well right now?
And you know what, I don’t blame you, we are living in an incredibly difficult season where adversity for many has hit an all-time high. This season, more than any other, should prompt us to check in on each other. But where does - or where should - this question lead us? If someone has reached a state of zen or utopia - nice, well done! But if colleagues we care about aren’t doing well right now, what then? Worse still, if we don’t know colleagues aren’t doing well, what then? How might we better be aware of and able to invest in the wellbeing of others? How can we help them be the best ‘well’ they can be in their right here, right now moment?
Once a year, The Grants Hub celebrates ‘Be Well’ Week, a play on ‘wellbeing’. I should make it clear, we don’t only focus on team wellbeing for one week a year, nor should we. During this week we intentionally channel a high level of energy into recognising what makes up our wellbeing, what we are doing to look after it, and how we might encourage one another to consider new and creative ways to promote better wellbeing in our lives and workforce.
I challenge the possible preconceived idea that ‘wellbeing’ is a state of happiness or contentment; these are states that we find ourselves in and out of, or for some maybe even out of for a very, very long time. Instead, by wellbeing, I’m talking about intentionally and actively investing energy into the various facets of life which help us handle what life throws at us - to be the best ‘you’ in your current circumstances, even if this in itself ain’t particularly pretty. As The Black Dog Institute puts it, “wellbeing helps to protect us from feelings of hopelessness and depression, acting as a ‘guardian’ of our mental health.” So, if you’re a people leader, how do you promote discussions around wellbeing? How do you cultivate a culture where being well is valued and promoted? Furthermore, in a climate where so many have moved their entire operations to a remote online setting, how do we ensure that the heartbeat of organisations, people and their welfare, are not left in the wake of such drastic workplace shifts?
I’d love to have the answers to these questions, and it’s certainly something I’m pursuing myself. In the meantime I want to share a couple of things we did at The Grants Hub for Be Well Week, some practical ways we looked out for and encouraged one another, setting our team up to cope with challenges life is throwing at them at the moment.
Each year during this week, we focus on five key areas:
Connecting
Getting Active
Being Mindful
Keeping on Learning
Giving to others.
As you read through these five areas, you may conjure up ideas on how these five things are achieved. Maybe you’re living these out, maybe you’re not; maybe like most of us, it’s hit and miss depending on your week’s schedule or mood at any given time. But how important is it that we learn from one another and draw on each other’s experiences? This year at The Grants Hub we decided to issue everyone the challenge of putting together an e-poster with five snaps representing each of the five components of wellbeing listed above. We then shared and celebrated them at the end of our Be Well week. It was one small but practical way we could stop in our footsteps, stop looking at the noise around us, and start thinking about simple, practical things that help us cope. And here’s what excites me about wellbeing the most: to invest in our wellbeing we need to invest in others’ wellbeing, which creates a domino effect on wellness! So, we stopped. We thought. We actively pursued wellbeing to help us be the best ‘me’ and ‘we’ in our current set of circumstances. It was creative, it was encouraging. It was, well, a chance for some to say, you know what, I’m not doing so well, but here’s a small practical thing I did this week to help me be well when not doing well. Most of all, it extracted wellbeing out of us rather than heaped expectation on us - in my opinion, the former being a far more effective way of creating shared growth.
During Be Well Week, we also ran an in-house challenge to create a list of thirty ways we can use our remote work allowance, a sum of money included in each employee’s payslip to promote healthy living in the remote work setting. Again, it was a small but meaningful way we could extract great ideas from those within The Grants Hub on how we can look after ourselves. As employees invest in healthy online working, we will encourage them to post updates on our Slack channel to share with others, promoting a culture where we value and uplift health and wellbeing. Again, a small, practical way we can share others’ knowledge to keep wellbeing at the forefront of our minds.
So, as we navigate this challenging climate, the significant curveballs thrown at some, and the most difficult, despairing season for others - let’s Be Well. May we actively invest in our own and each other’s health and wellbeing so that we can be the best version of ourselves we can be right now. It may not be what you had hoped for, it may not even feel good. But may it sustain us through overwhelming and hopeless feelings that might be thrown our way. May it help our work environments deal as best as possible with the lemons being served right now.
From Us to You, Be Well.
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