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Staff Welfare

Hi all,

This is my first post, so please forgive me if I don't get it right.

I am looking to introduce an informal chat with all staff on our payroll, where I discuss their well being.  I want to ensure stress and mental health if an issue is covered and generally find out how they are doing and do they feel they are progressing and have the right tools available to them.

Currently we have 28 staff on the books and also have long term temps.  Initially I would start with the staff on our payroll.

I am looking to carry these out every 3 months.  

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I should call these meetings and any questions I should ask.

The thought process behind these meeting are as follows.

There are three of us who run the day to day operations of the company and we all look after more than one area.  My job is Head of Customer Service & Business Support, which does include HR and Training.  I know that mental health is very important and stress is something that is unavoidable in our industry as we are a service provider, however we as a company want to ensure we work with our staff and alleviate as much as we can.  Both myself and my boss (the MD) have come from large corporate companies and are keen to introduce the good stuff and avoid the bad stuff  (if that makes sense).  All of our managers apart from us two are new to management and are in the 2nd to 3rd year now.  We want to ensure the staff are happy, feel like they are valued and are receiving the correct leadership and training.  I am currently in the process of putting all the staff through various QCF's that are specific to their job and ability, abnd this was rolled out as voluntary not compulsory and all staff signed up.

I am hoping to keep progressing the company with new and exciting ways for staff to develop and see our company as a good place to work.

Any advise or feedback will be greatly appreciated.

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  • Hi Kuljit

    I would see this as being outside the remit of an HR function. I would look for other ways to ensure that staff are happy and feel they are valued and would suggest you read up on engagement - my favourite book on this subject is First Break All the Rules by Buckingham and Coffman. If you want to provide one-to-one support for mental health issues and stress management, I would look into an EAP or a healthcare scheme that includes counselling support and publicise that to the staff. I am a big fan these as a staff benefit; they are a very cost effective way for your staff to get qualified help when they need it.

    I'd also be a bit wary of assuming that stress is unavoidable in your industry. If that is genuinely true, then you are not providing a safe place of work or safe systems of work and you need to redesign everyone's jobs. 

  • In reply to Elizabeth Divver:

    Hi Elizabeth,
    Thank you for coming back to me, if I was just HR I would tend to agree, however as I am one of the senior managers responsible for the day to day running this does fall under my remit, as Business Support as I look after staff welfare. I'm not just doing this for mental health, but for their general well being and training development. Thank you for taking the time to come back though.
  • In reply to Kuljit Senth:

    Welcome to the forums.

    You want to know what questions to ask? Surely Kuljit, this is an indication that if you don't know what questions to ask, how on earth will you know what the 'right' answer is?

    How on earth will you get staff to open up and tell you anything worthwhile?

    If anything I'd get this outsourced to some one like an EAP provider.
  • I think it's a great idea that someone's  line manager as part of their regular chats, catch up and informal discussions occasionally asks the person how they are and if there's anything the business can do to make things better/easier. But that's absolutely as far as I would go.

    I certainly wouldn't consider instituting sone form of regular formal session with either another Senior Manager or HR "checking" someone's mental health or stress levels. There are very few occupations where this would be appropriate and those mostly already have professional systems in place.

    In your situation I would much more be looking at things like a staff forum, communications and general engagement activity. You are a small business and I would have thought it likely you know everybody very well making everything more informal than formal and all the better for that.

  • In reply to Keith:

    Hi Keith,
    Thank you. This is really helpful. I'm just looking to have an informal chat with the teams, minus their line managers to ensure we are doing all we can as a company with regards to staff development and staff welfare. I will certainly look at some kind of staff forum. Thank you for taking the time to respond :)
  • In reply to David Perry:

    Hi David,
    Thank you for your response, I am very lucky as I do have a great working relationship with all the staff, and I do regularly do a walk around the business and surprisingly the staff are very open and do tell me quite a lot. I was just looking for any other ideas. I think I am going to go with Keith's suggestion below and have open staff forums. Thank you for taking the time to reply.
  • In reply to Kuljit Senth:

    I wonder how the line managers will feel with this approach and I wonder how they will not 9for some) turn into a whinging session about the line manger?

    Also How will your line managers grow and develop if you are bypassing them for this vital area of their management roles?
  • In reply to Keith:

    Hi Keith,
    This is something I worry about, however we are lucky that we are like a family business and we do have regular bi weekly meetings with all managers and a senior management meeting every Friday with the MD. Only this morning one of the warehouse operatives asked if I was free for a quick catch up to let me know how he is progressing. What we discussed was very positive about the job, his welfare and his line manager. However only 2 months ago it was quite the opposite. I guess the reason I sent this post is because I would like to try and do this with everyone not just 80% of the workforce. Am I being too greedy :)
  • In reply to Kuljit Senth:

    Personally I would train. coach and develop your line managers to do this

    Its their role after all :-) but good luck whatever you decide.
  • In reply to Keith:

    That's my end goal, really difficult at the mo, we are only 6 years old and majority first time in management. :)