The Assistant Director (Human Resources, Legal
& Democratic) provided a presentation to the Panel which
outlined the findings from the West Suffolk Wellbeing Pulse Survey
which had been undertaken in Autumn 2020 across the whole
organisation. The Survey had covered
the areas of:
-
Workload and productivity
-
Work life balance and wellbeing
-
Working with others
-
Feeling supported
-
Working at home
There had been a 51% completion rate of the
Survey across the organisation and a summary of the findings
were:
-
Wellbeing across the organisation was generally positive with
regards to how people felt about the contribution they made to the
organisation
-
A mixed view around acceptable workload levels and how productive
people felt.
-
As was to be expected, staff had found working during a pandemic
challenging and stressful.
-
Mixed response with regards to effects on work life balance and
wellbeing.
-
Positive results with regards to feeling supported by others and
management, but mixed response in how well staff felt listened
to.
-
Working from home had impacted on how people felt about their
physical health and how well they were able to stay connected.
-
Mixed response on the usefulness of the wellbeing initiatives which
had been provided by the Council.
The main points to note/consider centred
around:
-
People felt engaged with the work and felt that their work was
worthwhile and that there was a strong sense of support and
positive relationships.
-
There were a number of areas where personal responsibility needed
to be embedded and leadership skills developed to support staff
(ie wellbeing, workload, stress
management).
-
A need for on-going corporate wellbeing initiatives, working on
cultural shift around ownership.
-
Monitoring of workloads and resilience.
-
Communication and engagement on working to a new
‘normal’.
The staff also suggested various areas for
improvement on:
-
Future working practices and returning
back to the office.
-
Continued information on safe working practices and PPE.
-
Leadership culture.
-
On-going connectivity and leadership communications and
continuation of opportunities to talk about wellbeing and
stress.
-
Support for teams where COVID-19 had increased their workload.
As was expected, there were various warnings
signs raised within the Survey, which related to personal
resilience, workloads, stress management and the continual need to
connect and communicate.
Following on from this Survey, the
organisation had responded by:
-
Granting an additional day’s leave (wellbeing day).
-
Establishing Health and Wellbeing staff network/Wellbeing Champions
to support the wellbeing programme.
-
Organisation wide and leadership specific sessions.
-
Responding to lockdown roadmap and plans for return to offices.
-
Managers encouraged to review their service reports, develop team
action plans and to have regular discussions on wellbeing.
-
The HR Team were also undertaking various initiatives in response
to the Survey, which included health and wellbeing initiatives,
ways of working and training.
The Survey was currently being re-run and
would close on 1 April 2021.
The Panel acknowledged the results from the
Survey and the ...
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