How long have you worked at AWE?
Almost a year and a half
Why did you choose AWE?
I’ve worked as a Health and Wellbeing Specialist in a variety of industries such as Finance, Hospitality and Telecommunications. This is my first role in the defence industry.
I was fascinated by the variety of job roles and expertise that contribute towards AWE’s mission. Early on I could sense the pride that employees feel to work here.
Tell us about your time at AWE?
I lead the implementation and management of health and wellbeing initiatives within AWE’s overall wellbeing strategy. I’m part of the human resources team but my role is outward facing. It’s the part of the role I enjoy the most – working with the different functions and with that the unique wellbeing needs and variety of challenges faced.
A typical day for me might include; organising wellbeing workshops, drafting internal wellbeing messages, planning for upcoming health campaign dates, presenting at team meetings to promote tools and resources or interpreting anonymised health data to identify trends.
What is AWE doing to support the Wellbeing of its employees?
Our wellbeing programme is a key element of our Responsible Business approach. In 2020, our wellbeing strategy was approved by the Executive-led Responsible Business Group and we continue to use this forum to update the business on our progress. Our wellbeing strategy will lead us to become more proactive and preventative when it comes to staying well and avoiding ill health. The strategy is underpinned by the four pillars of wellbeing; physical, emotional, social and financial.
We benchmarked our people’s mental health and wellbeing last year with Mind’s Workplace Wellbeing Index and from the results we created an tailored action plan which focused on driving culture and engagement, building knowledge, skills and confidence in managing wellbeing and enhancing our support tools with data-led initiatives.
Why are events such as Mental Health Awareness Week so important?
We want to create a culture where there is no stigma attached to any aspect of wellbeing. For something to become normalised we need to feel comfortable talking about it and because we spend so much time at work it’s important that any difficulty we face in life, especially in relation to our health, we can talk about comfortably, confidently and get the right support.
From a business perspective – recent government reports are highlighting the cost that poor mental and physical employee health can have on businesses, impacting both productivity and absenteeism rates. It’s not just a coincidence that if you have a healthy, happy and engaged workforce, your productivity improves!
This year’s theme for Mental Health Awareness Week, set by the Mental Health Foundation, is Nature. It’s a brilliant theme to get us connecting with the outdoors more and the evidence clearly demonstrates the powerful benefits of nature for our mental health. During Mental Health Awareness Week, the Mental Health Foundation is asking us all to do three things:
- Experience nature
- Share nature
- Talk about nature
We’ll definitely be encouraging our people to!
What more can organisations do from a wellbeing perspective for employees
We need to not just address the symptoms but look at the root causes of why someone might experience problems with their mental health and wellbeing, so, they can be addressed and prevented.
People don’t generally expect to be physically injured at work and they shouldn’t expect to be emotionally harmed either. People should feel valued and cared for by their employer, and that starts with making sure people feel truly listened to.