OK – so I have to confess a bias here. I strongly believe that there is a clear link between a person’s general wellbeing and their ability to perform at their best at work. This view is partly formed from 30-odd years’ experience working in HR within the private and public sectors as well as what common sense and intuition tell me. So I was delighted to recently take up the opportunity to chair the Sub-Group on Wellbeing and further explore this theme as part of the Engage for Success movement.
The Engage for Success Wellbeing Sub-group will build on the work undertaken previously, when Stephen Lehane was the chair. The culmination of this earlier group’s work was the publication of “Sustaining Employee Engagement and Performance – Why Wellbeing Matters” and this gives us an excellent foundation to build upon. The new Wellbeing Sub-group benefits from having a number of members who were part of the original group as well as several new participants. The background of Sub-group members is diverse, with participants from industry, academia and consultancy – some are specialists and others generalists – and this blend seems to be creating an excellent dynamic and purpose.
Our initial investigations into the Wellbeing & Engagement topic area show that it is of interest to many people and that much excellent work has been done on Wellbeing in the UK and overseas. It is not our intention to duplicate effort or cut across what is already out there. Rather, we want to concentrate on pulling together evidence and case studies that can be of assistance and interest to individuals and teams in their day-to-day working lives.
Our “call for evidence” was launched at the August 2013 Engage for Success Guru event, and we are closing the formal call for evidence at the end of October 2013. Our initial focus is on Engagement & Wellbeing, but we would also like any evidence on the linkage between Engagement & Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as well as its links to Diversity & Inclusion (D&I).
If you have evidence of the links between Wellbeing & Engagement, CSR & Engagement, or D&I & Engagement (or maybe on all 3 of those connections) please contact us content@engageforsuccess.org. We will also be publishing some of this content on our website so please state whether you are happy for us to do this.
We are especially keen to get evidence that links these areas with individual and organizational performance. We aim to complete interim findings at the end of 2013 and final conclusions in March 2014. We’d also be delighted to carry on this conversation on Twitter@Engage4Success
Wendy Cartwright – Experienced HR Director, (most recently HRD for the Olympic Delivery Authority)
