Fostering a culture of trust and proactivity for wellbeing in SMEs

In this edition of the Evolve Workplace Wellbeing podcast, Dr Helen Fitzhugh from the University of East Anglia is in conversation with Nigel Lloyd, a Senior Research Fellow within the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) funded Public Health Intervention Responsiveness Studies Team (PHIRST) at the University of Hertfordshire. Nigel has been working on a project exploring take up of local authority support for SMEs on the topic of wellbeing and shares findings from that work. He kindly invited Helen to find parallels in Evolve's own work to enrich the discussion so the podcast session covers quite a lot of ground!

The PHIRST website with project outputs is here:  https://phirst.nihr.ac.uk/evaluations/an-evaluation-of-workplace-health-and-wellbeing-support-in-walsall-small-and-medium-sized-enterprises-smes/  

Transcript

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:27:19

Helen Fitzhugh

Welcome to the Evolve Workplace Wellbeing podcast. This podcast is part of a toolkit of free, evidence informed workplace wellbeing resources provided by the Workplace Wellbeing Research team at the University of East Anglia in the UK. You can find the resources on www.evolveworkplacewellbeing.org.

00:00:27:21 - 00:00:48:16

Helen Fitzhugh

Hello! Welcome to this edition of the Evolve Workplace Wellbeing podcast. Today I have the delight to be speaking with Nigel Lloyd, a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Hertfordshire, who's a social researcher and evaluator, and is going to be talking to us today about a project involving small and middle sized enterprises. Welcome, Nigel. It's lovely to have you here.

00:00:48:18 - 00:00:50:08

Nigel Lloyd

It's great to be with you, Helen.

00:00:50:10 - 00:01:02:05

Helen Fitzhugh

Thank you for coming. So as we always ask people on our podcast, I was wondering if you could start us off by telling us a little bit about your career journey and your professional interest in workplace wellbeing.

00:01:02:07 - 00:01:24:03

Nigel Lloyd

Sure. Will do. I mean, I've had a personal interest in work and employment for my whole career, really, and I've conducted different bits of research into this area at various times. So quite varied stuff, over time. But my career journey really started in academia. So I started off teaching psychology and research methods, amongst other things, to, to undergrads.

00:01:24:03 - 00:01:47:08

Nigel Lloyd

And I then wanted to do some applied community focused research. So sort of in the late 90s, early 2000s did a range of different sort of community focused pieces of work involving third sector organizations about capacity building and things like that. I also worked on larger evaluations, such as the National Evaluation of Neighbourhood Wardens. And then I went back into university research.

00:01:47:10 - 00:02:14:17

Nigel Lloyd

So did some work on fathers in my involvement in early years services, and then went into more of a support role supporting local programs and doing their evaluations and advising them and guiding them around that. Then I left there and started my own research consultancy and ran that for over a decade. So that was working with organizations to help them implement effective outcomes measurement systems and tools and demonstrate the value of that work.

00:02:14:20 - 00:02:43:11

Nigel Lloyd

And then just before the pandemic, decided to go back into academia. So worked first at City University in London. And this was to do with workplace wellbeing, actually to deal with burnout amongst the early career nurses. And then I got this role at the University of Hertfordshire, which is on a NIHR funded program. So National Institute of Health and Care Research funded program, and it's called PHIRST Public Health Intervention Responses Studies Team.

00:02:43:15 - 00:03:06:23

Nigel Lloyd

So basically the idea is that it's a university based team, and it does responsive evaluations of local government initiatives. So the local councils submit a proposal to NIHR for an intervention to be assessed. And if they're successful, they're allocated to one of these PHIRST teams. And the one that I work for is based at the University of Hertfordshire.

00:03:07:04 - 00:03:26:00

Helen Fitzhugh

Right. So lots of experience there and actually quite a lot of overlap with my career Nigel. All the stuff around the evaluation, the applied research, the interest in work, all of those things. So yeah, I'm very glad to be speaking with you today. So we've talked about you've come on to this PHIRST project. What have you been doing lately for that?

00:03:26:03 - 00:03:51:09

Nigel Lloyd

So one really interesting project that was recently finished with Walsall Council. They, like a number of other councils, provide support for businesses, for local businesses to to assist them in supporting the workplace wellbeing of their employees. And for them, the focus was very much on small and medium sized enterprises, those SMEs that you were talking about. They found that post Covid, uptake of that support wasn't as good as they might have hoped.

00:03:51:11 - 00:04:19:20

Nigel Lloyd

So the key aim for them was to explore those barriers to SME engagement. So why were SMEs not taking up that local government provided support and that's where we came in. I led the project to evaluate their initiative. So ultimately they're interested in SMEs engagement with that support that was provided. But the evaluation became a bit broader. And we also looked at SME provision of support for their employees.

00:04:19:22 - 00:04:26:16

Nigel Lloyd

Right. And employee uptake of that support. So these were really broad in scale. In the end.

00:04:26:16 - 00:04:47:21

Helen Fitzhugh

It's really important to bring in that work on workplace wellbeing for SMEs. And you know we've had a couple of podcasts before on Evolve Workplace Wellbeing about that because you know, sometimes people can think that workplace wellbeing is only something to think about if you've got a thousand employees and HR professionals supporting you with it, but actually it's relevant to everyone, isn't it?

00:04:47:23 - 00:04:58:15

Nigel Lloyd

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And it came out I mean we're go to the findings in a moment I'm sure. But there's so much of you, so much value. I think within this this study.

00:04:58:17 - 00:05:02:15

Helen Fitzhugh

Yeah. Well yeah. But happy for you to, to tell us a bit about your key findings.

00:05:02:17 - 00:05:25:18

Nigel Lloyd

Okay. Fantastic. I mean it's important to say I think straight off that it was clear that SMEs were often trying to support their employees as best they could. So obviously there were constraints there and they are well noted within the literature. So things like resources, such as time, staffing and expertise, if you're a small organization, then you know that having that infrastructure, having those resources can be challenging.

00:05:25:20 - 00:05:42:18

Nigel Lloyd

And also we found some overarching factors that seem to be important for SME engagement. So I mean one of the key ones was trust and the importance of building trust between employer and employee. And I, I listened to one of your other podcasts, actually, I think it was George from the Marina Bay Café?

00:05:42:18 - 00:05:45:14

Helen Fitzhugh

Yeah, yeah, we like George. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:05:45:16 - 00:06:08:11

Nigel Lloyd

It's really interesting. I mean, George mentioned a similar thing about the importance of working relationships and the importance of trust. And it ties in, I think, with that broader importance, really, of providing an environment that that supports workplace wellbeing. So providing a culture and an environment that does that. But we found that key to that is a trusting relationship between the employer and the employee.

00:06:08:14 - 00:06:33:22

Nigel Lloyd

So a barrier that we found to employers providing for their employees was their knowledge of the needs of employees. So sometimes there was a lack of formal assessment of employee need or where there was some type of assessment it was commonly informal. So it might be a quick question during an appraisal or something like that. But there was a lack of formality in terms of actually finding out what employees needed.

00:06:33:22 - 00:06:57:10

Nigel Lloyd

And sometimes employers stated that they hadn't provided support for their workforce because there wasn't any need within the workforce. Right. And typically that was because they weren't aware of it where it might have existed. So I think it's important to assess need and for employees to feel empowered and comfortable to disclose their needs. So if they've got an issue, if they've got a need for them to feel that they're able to talk about that.

00:06:57:10 - 00:07:31:02

Nigel Lloyd

But what we found where trust really comes in here, I think, is that there were concerns around confidentiality. Yeah. For employees, there was there was for some employees as well, a suspicion about their employers’ motivations, for asking about their wellbeing. So they might fear, for instance, is it going to be a negative consequence if I, for instance, tell my employer, that I've got this particular wellbeing need or, you know, I've got a bad back or I've had some mental wellbeing issues, you know, that, they could be treated badly as a result of that.

00:07:31:08 - 00:07:54:01

Nigel Lloyd

And while there wasn't any evidence on the employer side that that was the case, it was clear that some employees might feel that. And that's where I think there's really the need for good employer employee relationships and trust to be built there. So employees are clear that the employer's motivation for asking about wellbeing needs is that because they want the support.

00:07:54:03 - 00:08:13:18

Helen Fitzhugh

Yeah, absolutely. And I think one of the really interesting things about your, your research findings is how much they overlap with some of the stuff that came out of our work on the Good Jobs project here at Evolve. You know, when we worked on the 4 boosts for frontline workers, for instance, you know, people who are in public facing roles, who are often the most low paid workers.

00:08:13:18 - 00:08:40:04

Helen Fitzhugh

You know, one of the things that they said they really wanted out of, of, support for management was this idea of caring about them and their lives. So having that idea of actually, what are their needs. So you're saying there's a lack of needs assessment? We were saying the employees actually did want people to know about their needs, but in a kind of structured way, a bit of, you know, this is this is perhaps what we know about, you know, your child care needs or your training and development want.

00:08:40:06 - 00:09:03:07

Helen Fitzhugh

And there are ways that are suitable for everyone and for making fair decisions about them. So it's not just someone getting special treatment because they're, you know, the, the brother of the owner or whatever it is. But, actually, you know, everyone gets that sense of, we care about you and your life. We have this authentic desire to have happy people in our organization, and we go about it in a kind of a way that's structured and fair.

00:09:03:09 - 00:09:05:17

Helen Fitzhugh

So that really chimes with yours, doesn't it?

00:09:05:19 - 00:09:26:20

Nigel Lloyd

It really does. Yeah. I mean, people were I mean, so some, some, some employees as well had a general sort of reluctance to disclose. I mean there's something there as well, just about a general sense that is work  an appropriate place to raise wellbeing issues. You know, should I even be talking about this in the workplace? So I think there's something here as well about normalizing those discussions about wellbeing.

00:09:27:00 - 00:09:49:00

Nigel Lloyd

You know, some people feel happier talking about that than others, but the more we can encourage people to feel that the workplace is somewhere where it's appropriate to discuss your wellbeing needs, I think the more we can move towards a situation where employees have a better, a greater understanding of the wellbeing and support needs of their employees. So again, we're sort of back at culture and environment in a sense.

00:09:49:00 - 00:09:49:24

Nigel Lloyd

Okay.

00:09:50:01 - 00:10:09:07

Helen Fitzhugh

Yeah, absolutely. And like you say, you know, people will want to talk about things at different levels, have different levels of comfort perhaps in doing that, but that level of comfort will be heavily influenced by what their manager’s like and what they've seen them do to react to other people's disclosures.

00:10:09:09 - 00:10:33:19

Nigel Lloyd

Absolutely. And I mean, another finding that we had as well was a barrier to employee uptake of support or interest in workplace wellbeing support generally, was their employer's seeming lack of interest in wellbeing. So where employees felt that, my employer hasn't really shown any interest in this area, it seemed to influence their interest in workplace wellbeing and their focus on it as well.

00:10:33:19 - 00:10:39:09

Nigel Lloyd

So I think there is something of an employer drive of this. If that makes sense.

00:10:39:11 - 00:11:04:21

Helen Fitzhugh

Yeah, there's a need for proactivity, isn't there? Essentially, I think that that really at that point came out of, some of the longitudinal studies we did, just during the pandemic, you know, that those organizations where people were kind of thriving, even though it was a difficult situation, were those that proactively went at the idea of what do we need to do about workplace wellbeing, and therefore, what do we need to do about dialogue?

00:11:04:23 - 00:11:23:04

Helen Fitzhugh

You know, conversations, committees, whatever size of organization and arrangement was appropriate. But getting that feedback so they knew constantly what the need was, what the changing situation was. So yeah, that proactivity, I think is a really important part of the Evolve framework that we've got on there on the website really.

00:11:23:06 - 00:11:50:20

Nigel Lloyd

Yeah. And that sort of proactive versus reactive idea was, was key to another part of our work as well. What we found was that the idea of not providing support because there's no need, was tied to the idea that you would only provide it if there's an issue. Yeah. So that kind of that reactive idea that rather than it being preventative or part of your organizational practice generally, providing wellbeing support is something you do when you've identified an issue.

00:11:50:22 - 00:12:12:03

Nigel Lloyd

We found that idea for employers but also for employees. So some of them say that they hadn't accessed wellbeing provision because they didn't have an issue or a problem. So they had this idea perhaps that it's remedial rather than preventative. You know, you only you only access the support if you've got a problem. And I think that's something there.

00:12:12:03 - 00:12:24:14

Nigel Lloyd

Perhaps, you know, that that would benefit from some change in terms the perception of what, what it is to to be well in the workplace and what workplace wellbeing support actually entails and can do for you.

00:12:24:16 - 00:12:41:11

Helen Fitzhugh

I suppose, to pick up on one of the words you use that maybe people might push back on is like, you know, do we have to become more formal, you know, because some of the things about small and medium sized enterprises is they have less of that kind of formality. They can be a bit kind of fluid about what they're doing.

00:12:41:11 - 00:12:47:18

Helen Fitzhugh

So what does formality look like in in small and medium sized enterprises? We're not talking about 40 page policies are we?

00:12:47:18 - 00:13:09:08

Nigel Lloyd

Oh no we're not. And I think as well, we've got to be mindful of the fact that, you know, they are resource strapped online SMEs often. So what reasonably can they be expected to do? And I think that definitely to assess the needs of their employees. But it doesn't need to be an onerous task. I think you can do that, without expending a lot of effort, a lot of expenditure.

00:13:09:08 - 00:13:29:07

Nigel Lloyd

Some of the participants in our study actually said that they felt the smaller organizations were at an advantage, because they have smaller teams, that they are likely to have a better understanding of their workforce, you know, and be very close to them. So there is that, that that might actually be, something that enhances and helps them in terms of providing for their employees.

00:13:29:07 - 00:13:56:16

Nigel Lloyd

On the other hand, having such a smaller organization might then bring up some of those concerns around confidentiality, you know, because, you know, you've got a team of six or 8 or 10 people, there might be that fear amongst employees that word’s kind of going to get round about the issue that they have. So I think things like confidentiality are very important, but I think SMEs can actually do a lot of work in this area without a lot of outlay, without a lot of hard work necessarily.

00:13:56:16 - 00:14:02:14

Nigel Lloyd

But also, I think we do need to be cognizant of some of the challenges that small organizations face.

00:14:02:19 - 00:14:26:10

Helen Fitzhugh

Yeah, absolutely. I'm reminded with your thoughts about, you know, the problems of disclosure in small organizations of some research I did, on the ethics of workplace wellbeing. And the dilemmas that HR Professionals or People professionals or senior managers in smaller organizations face of the level that which, they can actually talk about someone's issues.

00:14:26:10 - 00:14:49:11

Helen Fitzhugh

So whereas you might have a small team that's very close, who would be happy to step in and cover something, but if someone they knew that someone had a really, bad health issue or something, if they can't disclose that because the person has said no, then that's when things get a little bit odd for them. And so that was one of the dilemmas that they were bringing up, was like how much that they are allowed to talk about it to other people.

00:14:49:15 - 00:15:10:07

Helen Fitzhugh

Obviously wanting to really make sure that they they look after the person who's got a wellbeing issue and don't disclose - over disclose - things. But also really managing that team dynamic is something that that they fret over and they keeps them awake at night. These HR professionals. So yeah, really interesting people and culture work going on in this area.

00:15:10:09 - 00:15:19:20

Nigel Lloyd

I mean, it's important to just recognize the challenges that SMEs have, but also there are a range of SMEs. I mean, if you're talking about an organization with 250 members of staff, okay, yeah.

00:15:19:20 - 00:15:20:13

Helen Fitzhugh

Absolutely.

00:15:20:13 - 00:15:42:06

Nigel Lloyd

Massive staff that can be different to one with eight or 10 or 50 members of staff. So I mean, a lot of these challenges are very individual, I think, to the organization, to the sector. So there's a lot to unravel and unpick here. But I think there are some key things that if organizations can do those across the board they are likely to be beneficial to the wellbeing of their employees.

00:15:42:08 - 00:15:53:14

Helen Fitzhugh

Yeah, great. So let's talk about those challenges and how they might be overcome then. So one one is that, you know, that obviously it has to be responsive to the kind of size and sector you're in. But what else is there.

00:15:53:16 - 00:16:13:24

Nigel Lloyd

Yeah. Well I mean we found the awareness of wellbeing support, was a real issue within SMEs. This might be, for instance, where individuals are working offsite. You know, how do you ensure that individuals who aren't always at your main site are aware of the provision that's there and also enable to access it? So that can be challenging.

00:16:14:03 - 00:16:36:24

Nigel Lloyd

So I think communication is key here. Yeah. So I mean, you know, communicating to people about the support that's available. We had a really interesting example actually, that an employee spoke about in terms of their workforce, and there was some mental health wellbeing support available to them. But the poster for it, I think was in the canteen or in a public area.

00:16:37:01 - 00:16:58:10

Nigel Lloyd

They spoke about the fact that you might be standing there reading that, and everybody else is potentially aware that you're interested in that topic or that you might have a wellbeing issue. So the importance of actually even just simple things like where is that publicized, you know, can you do it more privately, more discreetly? Can it be in a non-public area?

00:16:58:12 - 00:17:19:00

Nigel Lloyd

Until I guess we get to that point where, you know, these these things are normalized and we're happy to talk about those issues up until that point. Perhaps we need to look at how we can make engaging with support inclusive and destigmatizing and something that people are happy to do when they might not traditionally feel that comfortable with some of these topics.

00:17:19:06 - 00:17:37:05

Helen Fitzhugh

Yeah. And I think that probably chimes with the idea of having multiple communication streams for everything you're doing, because it's, especially in some of the earlier research I was doing with, manufacturing organizations, you would say, how are you telling people about what you're doing? And they would say, oh, we put it out in an email once.

00:17:37:05 - 00:17:58:20

Helen Fitzhugh

You know, it's like, okay, so, possibly it would be good to have multiple different ways of telling people about those things and also keep doing it because, you know, it's they might not need it now, but in, you know, one year, two year, three years, people won't be able to dig back and find that email again. So it's that kind of almost like it's never done.

00:17:58:23 - 00:18:20:00

Helen Fitzhugh

There's still an evolving and no pun intended, actually an evolving, kind of situation where where what you've got is, people who arrived since you last made people aware of your wellbeing offer. They may be new employees, they may have forgotten about it. It may not have been important to them. Then, like you said, but now it is.

00:18:20:00 - 00:18:27:18

Helen Fitzhugh

Where is it and is it available in multiple places? That's not just one place in the canteen where you have to scan a QR code with your phone and show you're going to use it.

00:18:27:20 - 00:18:36:12

Nigel Lloyd

So, so important. You know, in different sectors, people have different, different needs and different preferences for the way that they access information as well.

00:18:36:12 - 00:18:37:14

Helen Fitzhugh

Yeah, absolutely.

00:18:37:14 - 00:19:15:21

Nigel Lloyd

Some people are tech savvy, some people aren't. Some people would rather read something. Some people are happy with the screen. So I think those things are really important. And also the idea of keeping wellbeing on the agenda. You know, it's clear from some of the employees that we spoke to and also some of the employers that sometimes at busier times of the year or at certain periods, it can be difficult to keep some of that wellbeing provision, highlighted and prioritized when the focus of the business moves to move towards, you know, the bottom line and actually perhaps it’s year end or perhaps there's a particularly large order that's coming, there's something that

00:19:15:21 - 00:19:22:05

Nigel Lloyd

needs to be dealt with. I think there's a challenge there. And keeping wellbeing on the agenda year round.

00:19:22:08 - 00:19:48:15

Helen Fitzhugh

Yeah, absolutely. And you remind me there again during that, that period of consultation in 2018, 2019, I remember speaking to a large retail store and they were saying, we know that pressure on people it's really heavy during the Christmas period, for instance. But what we do is, is we make sure that before that and after that, we've given people a chance to sort of decompress and not just keep on going at that rate because that would lead to burnout.

00:19:48:15 - 00:20:03:17

Helen Fitzhugh

Whereas we say, okay, well, we know this is going to be a little bit of a hard time for say, six weeks. We'll get through it. And then, you know, we'll be a lot more flexible and you can have a bit of a, you know, sit back and think. So they were already thinking about it proactively knowing that was a pinch point.

00:20:03:21 - 00:20:26:19

Nigel Lloyd

Yeah, that makes sense. It really does. Another thing that we found was important. So this is a key one as well I think - is the importance of champions. Someone within the organization who is leading on workplace wellbeing issues. And our survey analysis found that having internal staff in place to coordinate wellbeing provision really influences organizations workplace wellbeing practice.

00:20:26:19 - 00:20:45:08

Nigel Lloyd

Obviously this can be a bit challenging for smaller SMEs who might not, for instance, have a HR department, but having somebody who's leading on that, someone whose responsibility is someone who's perhaps committed, it might be a member of the senior management team, for instance. Yeah. You know, can really help in terms of driving those those wellbeing agendas.

00:20:45:08 - 00:20:46:23

Nigel Lloyd

I think within organizations.

00:20:47:03 - 00:20:48:20

Helen Fitzhugh

Yeah. That's a really great point.

00:20:48:22 - 00:21:10:23

Nigel Lloyd

Within the organization, everyone's got a role to play, including the employees. You know, the more we can sort and perhaps encourage them as well to, to disclose, you know, to look about their needs, you know, that can really help. And also in terms of workplace wellbeing as a whole, we found quite clearly that obviously there's a role for, for instance, local government, local authorities in supporting and supporting SMEs.

00:21:11:01 - 00:21:16:20

Nigel Lloyd

There's that role for SME employers as well. And there's that role for for the employees.

00:21:17:01 - 00:21:28:19

Helen Fitzhugh

So it sounds like there are a fair few challenges. But I know in your research you have sort of summarized it down so people can know really simply what actions to take. So what are those actions.

00:21:28:19 - 00:21:58:11

Nigel Lloyd

Begin to normalize those wellbeing discussions. Try to remove the stigma. Maybe around certain wellbeing issues, create a culture of wellbeing embedded within everyday practice, for instance. I think that's really important that people see day to day this is an organization that that values the wellbeing of staff and have that embedded at every level into everything you do. I think also there's something about that change from reactive to proactive that's really, really important on the part of, you know, both the employer and the employee.

00:21:58:11 - 00:22:28:07

Nigel Lloyd

And another thing I think to to think about for small businesses is how you timetable that provision effectively. You know, if you're thinking about workplace wellbeing provision, depending on the sector, it can be quite difficult, for instance, to remove employees from productive work to engage with workplace wellbeing provision. So again, it's about embedding that about planning that so that they can show that there's time made within the working day for individuals to actually perhaps access some of that support.

00:22:28:07 - 00:22:52:06

Nigel Lloyd

Yeah, I mean, I think the benefit financially of investing in workplace wellbeing, I think also is well documented that, so there is a challenge, I think, in terms of making small businesses aware of that, small organizations aware of the potential benefits for their bottom line in terms of, investing in workplace wellbeing associated with that. They understand that.

00:22:52:06 - 00:23:19:11

Nigel Lloyd

But also where are those where and when that those benefits accruing? You know, if it's in five years time and you're a small organization and you might be you're struggling in terms of, sustainability, it can be difficult to think to look that far ahead. So maybe some of those shorter term benefits as well. It's important to focus on around employees actually feeling happier in the workplace perhaps, job satisfaction, retention, those sorts of things.

00:23:19:14 - 00:23:37:13

Helen Fitzhugh

Yeah. And I suppose the it's not getting any easier is it? I'm just thinking about all the things that are going on in the world today. There's going to be quite a lot of changes around work, organizations, business coming forwards. What do you think are the pressing workplace wellbeing issues of, say, the next decade? 

00:23:37:15 - 00:23:40:20

Nigel Lloyd

Tricky one there. I mean, there's

00:23:40:22 - 00:23:41:17

Helen Fitzhugh

There is a lot.

00:23:41:19 - 00:24:02:01

Nigel Lloyd

Yeah. I mean, I think there are, you know, the enduring issues like job security and, and pay. You know, sometimes I think some of that stuff sometimes gets gets a little bit overlooked when we look at workplace wellbeing because we talk about provision of wellbeing services. But there's some of those more fundamental things such as pay and conditions, you know, that really influence employees’ wellbeing.

00:24:02:01 - 00:24:23:22

Nigel Lloyd

So I think you know, those things moving forward, particularly if the economic environment becomes more challenging, those are going to be very important. Obviously, a key one is the number of people out of work with ill health and increasing rates of sickness absence, and how encouraging people back into work and creating workplaces that support workers’ ongoing wellbeing is going to be done.

00:24:23:22 - 00:24:45:08

Nigel Lloyd

So I think the other thing, obviously, again, is AI and the impact of of I think on, on people's roles, there are opportunities there. Obviously there were real risks as well for people's jobs, but not just in terms of job losses, but obviously in terms of people's roles changing as AI starts to enhance what people do or to change what people do.

00:24:45:08 - 00:25:18:03

Nigel Lloyd

And there's the issue as well of how people potentially get that sense of meaning in their lives and from their work, but definitely in their lives. If, for instance, their job potentially isn't there or they haven't, there wasn't as much employment in the economy. And obviously, how do we keep wellbeing at the forefront of people's minds, keep it embedded as we as we have been speaking about, when at the same time, businesses are facing all of these different challenges, on an ongoing basis, you know, small organizations have a lot to have a lot to focus on.

00:25:18:03 - 00:25:43:07

Nigel Lloyd

The SMEs, for instance, might be charities or third sector organizations. There are funding issues there. So I think a key challenge is really how can we keep the focus on wellbeing, find ways for SMEs to be supported effectively that aren't onerous, that are cheap, that may be light touch, that start them on the road to doing the sorts of things that they want to do.

00:25:43:08 - 00:26:07:23

Nigel Lloyd

But I definitely do feel for organizations as well who sometimes feel that, this is an onerous task. And I think what we found in the work that we did is that it doesn't need to be and the really encouraging thing is that there's often support out there. So what I’d personally say to SMEs who'd like to improve their workplace wellbeing provision, what's available locally, you know, is there is there free support available, for instance, from your local authority?

00:26:07:23 - 00:26:24:12

Nigel Lloyd

And can you access that? You know, there's been a big move nationally as well, for instance, to provide NHS health checks within workplaces. So, you know, can you access some of those, can those be the sorts of initiatives that get you started on that road and get your, workforce engaged?

00:26:24:18 - 00:26:45:23

Helen Fitzhugh

So, yes, a really strong message of both awareness and kind of proactivity coming out of your research and indeed our research that it's really important for SMEs to to be able to see what's out there and make use of it to best advantage. And it's I think it's really interesting that what you said earlier about it's not just about wellbeing provision as a word.

00:26:45:23 - 00:27:01:23

Helen Fitzhugh

It's not just providing people with things. It's also kind of all ways of working. So you're not necessarily spending money or spending time out doing things differently. But the ways of working around how you manage, how you listen, how you resource people are really important too.

00:27:01:23 - 00:27:19:12

Nigel Lloyd

Yeah 100% Right. And I think that came out quite strongly in our findings as well. The sorts of things that suggest to an employee, for instance, that their employer cares about them. You know, it doesn't have to be a big sort of a massive expenditure, for instance, it might just be the, you know, it's clear that you do the small things for the employee.

00:27:19:12 - 00:27:40:00

Nigel Lloyd

It's clear that you're interested in them, as you've mentioned, that you're looking to actually try to enhance their wellbeing, that you're flexible in terms of what you offer to employees in the way that you might allow them to work. So some of those small things do really make a difference. So it's not all you know about these add ons, about employee assistance programs and the like.

00:27:40:02 - 00:27:52:07

Nigel Lloyd

Often it's about the smaller things that employers can do to actually support their employees that make them feel valued. You know, good management, for instance, yeah, I guess you mentioned is important. So yeah, I think there's a lot there.

00:27:52:09 - 00:28:09:10

Helen Fitzhugh

So we've actually covered quite a lot of ground there. About what is going on in SMEs and what they can do. But if the listener only takes one simple message from this podcast today, although of course, we hope they will take more, what would you want that message to be?

00:28:09:10 - 00:28:11:10

Nigel Lloyd

I've got kind of one and a bit messages.

00:28:11:12 - 00:28:14:15

Helen Fitzhugh

Okay, we’ll allow you one and a bit.

00:28:14:17 - 00:28:53:05

Nigel Lloyd

So I mean ensuring high levels of workplace wellbeing, I think that I think is an enterprise that requires involvement of multiple stakeholders and a range of different factors. So it's about being holistic I think. Yeah. And there's a role there, for instance, for a local government perhaps in terms of how they support SMEs and how other organizations support SMEs, there's a role there for SMEs in terms of their provision of support, the culture and environment that they create within their organizations, their ongoing focus on wellbeing, you know, even where business sustainability might seem to be a priority, can you maintain that focus on on wellbeing also in terms of things like pay, conditions,

00:28:53:05 - 00:29:07:15

Nigel Lloyd

flexibility that we've discussed. So I think it's that the idea that it's it's the involvement of multiple stakeholders in this, but that it doesn't have to be difficult, but it doesn't have to be costly, that it doesn't have to be time consuming. That would be a key message there. 

00:29:07:15 - 00:29:21:23

Helen Fitzhugh

So my my experience definitely is that people are interested and they want to do things. And it is just about that next step of building that awareness of what's available to them to do and taking the next, the next step on that road.

00:29:21:23 - 00:29:39:22

Nigel Lloyd

Right, absolutely. And, you know, we found as well that sometimes businesses were uncertain about it. Yeah. So that's the other thing. They want to do something they don't know where to start. You know, they're uncertain about what they could be doing. So the more they can be supported with that, the more likely they are to actually take some positive action.

00:29:39:24 - 00:29:51:08

Helen Fitzhugh

Thank you so much for bringing that to us today. As I said at the start of the podcast, always like to talk about SMEs. So really glad to hear from you on this topic. Thank you so much.

00:29:51:10 - 00:29:57:15

Nigel Lloyd

That's great Helen. An absolute pleasure. Great speaking to you.

00:29:57:17 - 00:30:15:20

Helen Fitzhugh

Please do visit www.evolveworkplacewellbeing.org. We look forward to seeing you next time.