Corporate Health and Wellbeing Program – Conference

9:10

DEVELOPING A POSITIVE CULTURE OF TRUST AND BELONGING

Ziena Jalil, A changemaker and former diplomat

Workplace culture exists in every organisation, whether intentional or not. A positive culture has the potential to generate innovation, better decision making and improved financial outcomes, while a negative culture can have serious implications across all areas of business. The key driver of whether your corporate culture is high-functioning or counterproductive is how employees are made to feel as a result of your organisational values, policies and practices.

However, it’s not enough to promote principles such as diversity, inclusion, equity and trust through your corporate values, if they do not translate to the lived employee experience. So, how can you nurture your workplace culture to allow employees to learn, contribute and challenge the status quo without fear of punishment or prejudice?

This session will provide you with a clear roadmap to developing a high-trust workplace culture that champions diversity and allows your employees to be their authentic selves. It will explore the importance of meeting your team’s psychological safety needs in ensuring a respectful and productive workplace. You will also gain insights into how you can:

• Foster a genuine atmosphere of belonging within your workforce
• Integrate your team’s psychological safety needs into your business design and practices
• Support employee engagement, performance, and retention through a purposeful corporate culture
• Demonstrate the value of diverse viewpoints within your organisation
• Reap the benefits of a high-trust workplace culture

10:00

THRIVING THROUGH CHANGE, AND BUILDING WORKFORCE RESILIENCE IN UNCERTAIN TIMES 

Joe Davis, Founder & CEO Nanogirl Labs and author of the book ’Silver Linings’

The last several years have been punctuated by constant change and uncertainty, which has completely transformed the way businesses operate and how employees engage in the workplace. With a huge shift towards remote, flexible and hybrid working, coupled with additional household and home-schooling duties, it’s likely your team’s resilience has been tested repeatedly, often to breaking point.

As we all continue to navigate this new landscape of working and business operations, organisations have an imperative to support the wellbeing of their teams and provide them with the necessary frameworks and infrastructure to allow them to thrive through ongoing change. Through enabling agile ways of working and encouraging an adaptable culture, you can equip your people to respond to future challenges and disruptions with greater clarity and confidence.

This presentation will offer practical suggestions on how your leadership team can:

• Ensure policies and procedures are sustainable and can evolve with the changing needs of your organisation and team
• Provide employees with a sense of stability through connection and community
• Help your team to ‘bounce forward’ when faced with difficult situations
• Approach changes with curiosity rather than resistance
• Harness the power of adaptability to promote greater levels of performance and creativity

11:15

CREATING A FLOURISHING, MENTALLY HEALTHY WORKPLACE

Jacqui Maguire, Clinical Psychologist and science communicator

There has never been a more critical time to prioritise the mental health of your employees. With mental health challenges becoming increasing prevalent due the inherent stressors of recent times, organisations are being faced with a workforce that is fatigued, stretched and frankly, burnt out.

Over and above your responsibilities to your employees, supporting their mental health can have significant impacts on their productivity, performance and job satisfaction, as well as reduce absenteeism, presenteeism and employee attrition.

Many organisations have the fundamentals in place and understand the importance of raising awareness of mental health and providing support and resources to individuals who are identified as experiencing challenges. However, this reactive approach often falls short of what is needed to create a flourishing, mentally healthy workplace.

This presentation will allow you to reflect on your organisation’s current approach and initiatives, and identify opportunities to provide more robust, proactive and tailored support for your employees. It will explore how you can address mental health at the source and provide a safe and supportive environment for your team to thrive through:

• Embedding mental health and wellbeing into your organisational values and culture
• Collecting and using data to guide your efforts and detect emerging challenges
• Creating a framework for conversations and de-stigmatising issues
• Evaluating how work is designed, how demands are managed and how your team is supported day-to-day
• Modelling mentally healthy practices and boundaries at all levels of your organisation
• Recognising the rapidly evolving needs of your workforce and responding accordingly

12:00

CASE STUDY: THE POWER OF PROTECTING YOUR PEOPLE

This session will be led by a human resources director from an industry leading organisation, who will share their innovative and holistic approach to supporting employee wellness and mental health. They will discuss how their organisation advocates for the mental health of their workforce through their culture, policies, processes, training, resources and targeted initiatives.

You will hear how this organisation has created a safe workplace environment that emphasises prevention and the enhancement of mental health, while normalising mental health challenges and making support accessible to all. You will also learn about the successes and learnings from this organisation’s approach to employee mental health, how they are removing barriers to care, and the competitive edge they have gained through their mental health strategy.

Through this case study, you will gain invaluable insights into how your organisation can provide meaningful and mutually advantageous support to your team through:

• Recognising and enhancing the positive elements of your organisation that contribute to positive mental health and help your people thrive
• Making mental health support and resources more accessible regardless of your workplace structure
• Ensuring your initiatives are well-founded and succeed the first time, every time
• Developing a wellbeing manifesto to provide a clear framework for your team culture and increase visibility of your mental health policies

13:30

CASE STUDY: IMPLEMENTING A ROBUST AND IMPACTFUL WORKPLACE HEALTH AND WELLBEING PROGRAM

Sarah Tuck, Award-winning social entrepreneur, mental health advocate, facilitator and theatre maker

Corporate wellness programs have become a non-negotiable for many organisations, providing structured initiatives to increase the health, engagement, and productivity of employees. From providing health screenings and access to support services, to volunteer days and physical wellness activities – the sky really is the limit with what you include in your program.

So, how can you ensure your program hits all the right notes and has a positive and lasting impact on the lives of your employees, and benefits your business bottom line? In this session, you’ll learn how to set your wellbeing program up for success, with tips on how to create a strong business case, set clear goals and objectives, secure buy-in from your leadership team, and ensure your program aligns to your organisational values and culture. You’ll also walk away from this session with practical and actionable ideas on how to:

• Tailor your program to the unique needs of your team, ensuring your initiatives are relevant and accessible
• Use your communication channels to generate awareness, interest and participation
• Contribute to creating a healthy workplace culture through your program
• Leverage senior leadership involvement to create momentum and maintain engagement

14:00

PANEL DISCUSSION: HOW TO MAXIMISE THE ROI FROM YOUR HEALTH AND WELLBEING PROGRAM

This session will feature a panel discussion between representatives from nib, who will share their thoughts on health and wellbeing programs and the value they can provide to organisations and employees. They will explore topics including how to how to measure return on investment for your program, how to demonstrate the value of your initiatives, and what success looks like for different stakeholders.

This discussion will explore what the team from nib have found to be effective in increasing the uptake and impact of their health and wellbeing programs, such as getting senior leadership team on board, providing clear and regular communications to employees, and ensuring initiatives are relevant and meet the needs of their team.

The panel will also discuss the many factors that should be considered when measuring return on investment and value on investment of health and wellbeing programs, drawing on their experiences of initiatives at nib. You’ll walk away from this session equipped with a stronger understanding of how to:

• Create clear goals and manage expectations for your program from the outset
• Secure buy-in from your leadership, workforce, and stakeholders
• Develop a framework to measure ROI holistically so you can demonstrate the success of your programs
• Attribute softer value measures such as job satisfaction and productivity into your evaluations to capture the broader impacts
• Increase the impact of your initiatives across all stakeholder groups
• Use data and feedback to track your progress

15:15

THE PSYCHOLOGY THAT DRIVES HIGH-PERFORMING TEAMS

Dr Rod Corban, High-performance sports psychologist 

We’ve established that it’s crucial to offer a safe, welcoming and adaptable workplace that addresses the wellbeing of employees. However, your organisation must go beyond meeting these foundational requirements to create a high-performance culture that gets the most out of your people.

You can super-charge your team’s motivation, productivity and happiness levels by tapping into the psychology of success and addressing their intrinsic needs for achievement, recognition, advancement and meaning. Through understanding what drives your employees and leveraging their inherent strengths, you can benefit from a workforce that is motivated to learn, stretches themselves and approaches their work creatively. This also translates to reduced burnout, increased innovation and improved business outcomes, giving your organisation a competitive advantage.

Through this session, you will gain a stronger understanding of the psychological factors that impact your team’s mindset, behaviour and performance. You’ll explore what all high-functioning teams have in common, how employees derive meaning from their work and how to ensure your business design allows its people to be their best. This session will help bolster the performance of your team with real-world examples of how organisations can successfully:

• Create strategies for employees to upskill, develop and receive feedback
• Identify and address stagnation and burnout in employees
• Support experimentation and creativity
• Foster a collaborative environment that promotes the free flow of ideas
• Provide employees with autonomy to encourage increased accountability, ownership and motivation
• Utilise key performance indicators to help employees connect their contributions to shared goals

16:00

KEYNOTE: LEADERSHIP THROUGH A HUMAN-CENTRED LENS

Chris Roberts, Former CEO of Tourism Industry Aotearoa

In this inspirational keynote session, we will explore the role of the leader in healthy, thriving organisations. Leadership is no longer confined to the corner office – it is an omnipresent entity that sets the tone for how employees show up to work. A good leader must be vulnerable while demonstrating strength, have self-awareness and situational awareness, and be capable of cultivating both deep trust and high expectations of their employees. The best leaders are empathetic, using a human-centred lens in their decision making and putting people before policies at every opportunity.

When your people know you have their best interests at heart and feel genuinely valued, it instils a culture of mutual respect and trust. Through living and breathing these values, leaders can create the conditions for their team to do their best work and flourish. The impacts of an effective, human-centred leader can be seen at all levels and touchpoints of an organisation, from attracting the best talent through to employee performance and how receptive employees are to change.

The pandemic has only reinforced the need for this type of leadership – people need leaders who provide a safe and stable environment and make them feel their contributions matter. This session will inspire you to become the best leader you can be and encourage others to follow in your footsteps. Together, we will form a roadmap for you to:

• Build and maintain strong relationships with your team to increase engagement and motivation
• Use transparency and consistent communication to foster trust
• Lead with empathy, inclusivity and flexibility to support your team through any challenge
• Invest in your people and leverage their strengths
• Evaluate how you show up for your team, ensuring your actions align to your organisational values