Taking a holistic approach to your wellbeing strategy is never simple. Even when your wellbeing strategy is established, growing the health of your staff and remaining proactive is crucial. As Prof. Cary Cooper states, “A workforce that is well works well.” Creating a culture of wellbeing takes time, commitment and constant innovation. The old one size fits all approach to wellbeing is now obsolete. One of the most new and innovative ways to support staff wellbeing is writing. Long since recognised in the US as a workplace intervention, it is slowly gaining popularity in the UK.
The Evidence:
Writing for wellbeing comes with impressive credentials. Research based evidence has demonstrated the following benefits;
- Reduce levels of stress
- Staff recover more successfully from traumatic events
- Result in fewer days lost to sickness, absenteeism and presenteeism
- Improve working memory
- Increase flow
- Strengthen immune system
- Improve creativity and innovation
- Increase wellbeing
- Build stress management capacity
- Improve confidence
- Increase mindfulness
Set the scene.
Writing for wellbeing has an impressive evidence base and this is your opportunity to sell it to your organisation. Get to grips with the scientific research behind writing for wellbeing including stress reduction, resilience and employee engagement. Deep dive into the impact of writing for wellbeing. We’re happy to share our expertise in this field with you. Initially it’s important that you gain buy in from the top of the organisation, one or two champions will help you to establish your programme.
Start with the end in mind:
What are you trying to achieve? Are you using the programme to reduce stress? to build resilience? increase creativity or to increase compassion? There are a number of really good reasons to use writing for wellbeing, knowing what yours is will help you to clarify the type of programme that you use.
Answer questions:
Writing for wellbeing is a lesser known intervention so it makes sense to inform your staff. A Q&A session will help to bust any myths as well as allay fears around your potential programme. Your writing for wellbeing tutor should be happy to provide a session where potential participants are able to find out more, answer questions and discuss an outline of the programme that you have chosen.
Provide a taster:
Once you’ve got buy in from senior leaders, worked out exactly what you want to achieve from the programme and clarified your genuine commitment with your team, go for it with a taster session. This will really give interested participants an opportunity to find out more first hand as well as discover if mindfulness is for them.
