It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in or how big your business is – your employees should have access to wellbeing services in order to maintain their health and happiness.

78% of brokers say they feel stressed at work, with many employees experiencing a mental health problem as a result of work.

The industry poses unique challenges for employees. Heavy workloads, a fast paced-environment, stressful situations and high responsibility means many brokers need additional support to help them achieve a strong work/life balance and sense of workplace wellbeing.

In a busy workplace environment, senior managers don’t often have time to develop wellbeing strategies, manage external freelancers or arrange individual training sessions. After all, they have a business to run! Like all things, it’s not fair to expect managers or employees to be an expert outside of their field. A wellbeing expert is a highly skilled professional with a background in mental and physical health. In the same way you wouldn’t advise a client not to arrange their own insurance, we wouldn’t advise you to manage your own wellbeing strategy independently.

Enter We Are Wellbeing.

We work closely with you to develop a wellbeing strategy by taking on feedback from the people who know your business best: your employees. Our free Wellbeing Insights Report tells you the key areas your people want to learn about, enabling us to create a wellbeing programme tailored to your staff’s needs.

The Chartered Insurance Institute, in partnership with Mind, has developed “A Guide to Implementing the Thriving at Work Standards.” These six standards are:

Produce, implement and communicate a ‘mental health at work’ plan that encourages good mental health of all staff and an open organisational culture

Developmental health awareness among employees by making information, tools and support accessible

Encourage open conversations about mental health and the support available when employees are struggling, during the recruitment process and at regular intervals throughout employment, with appropriate workplace adjustments offered to employees who require them

Provide your employees with good working conditions and ensure they have a healthy work-life balance and opportunities for development

Promote effective people management to ensure all employees have a regular conversation about their health and wellbeing with their line manager, supervisor or organisational leader and train and support line managers ineffective management practices

Routinely monitor employee mental health and wellbeing by understanding available data, talking to employees and understanding risk factors

Whilst We Are Wellbeing uses our own wellbeing strategies, we recognise much of our work naturally links into these six standards. For example:

1. We equip our clients with a workplace wellbeing programme, which shows employees the business is seriously committed to improving workplace culture

2. Providing printed materials, online guides and resources to help employees. We also deliver training sessions, workshops and seminars

3. Supporting businesses to make a change to their recruitment and employment process, helping them to make wellbeing part of the workplace induction

4. Helping employees thrive both in and out of work. Empowering your workforce to get out there and improve their own health, too, whether that’s by learning a new skill or starting a fitness regime

5. Train Wellbeing Champions within the business, who will become a key point of contact for employees wishing to talk about their mental health or suggest wellbeing initiatives

6. Undertaking annual Wellbeing Insights surveys and producing reports for our clients, showcasing the areas of wellbeing employees would like to improve. This will help us to shape your ongoing wellbeing programme

Why you should work with a wellbeing partner

The We Are Wellbeing experts will get to know your business. With over a hundred years’ experience between us, it’s likely we’ve worked in your sector before. We’ll get to know the unique challenges your staff face, and find ways to ensure your workplace culture combats these challenges. Together, we’ll make sure your employees are healthy and happy – empowered to do their best and thrive both in and outside of work.

Our experience in the financial services sector

We’re part of the Romero Group, a group of insurance brokers. We’ve been working with each business closely to develop a comprehensive wellbeing programme. This includes 1:1 coaching, manager training, wellbeing workshops, delivering seminars and running annual health checks. We’ve recruited and trained a team of internal Wellbeing Champions, and helped the Romero Group incorporate the wellbeing process from induction right through to day-to-day life at work. It’s true that developing a positive workplace culture doesn’t happen overnight, but the process can be swiftly accelerated with a helping hand from wellbeing experts.

The results speak for themselves:

In just twelve months, Romero Group employees experienced:

· 11% increase in health and wellbeing focus

· 12% increase in participation in wellbeing initiatives

· 17% increase in happiness score

· An average employee giving an 8 out of 10 happiness at work rating

· Increase in better diet and nutrition

· Increase in physical activity levels

· Increase in the amount and quality of sleep

· Improvement in smoking and drinking habits

This just goes to show that a workplace wellbeing programme can produce tangible, real-life results. Wellbeing delivers a strong ROI, too, as happy and healthy employees are less likely to need time off from work, and will be more engaged and productive at work too! Employee wellness is great for your staff, and for business.

To find out more about our work within your sector, get in touch with the team.