Ain’t got no satisfaction? How to create wellbeing for employees.

Ann Chambers, HR Director, Ecotone highlights the ways her company delivers satisfaction to employees.

“I can’t get no satisfaction”, The Rolling Stones roared back in 1964. Flash forward to today: in a competitive candidate market, it’s all about ensuring your talent is suitably satisfied.

It’s up to businesses to work harder and smarter at this. At Ecotone, we’re committed to employee-wellbeing as a core component of our corporate culture. This is both because it aligns to who we are as biodiversity-protectors, but also because it helps us build an engaged workforce, and brings everyone together.

Employees have witnessed a challenging few years: from economic volatility and escalating climate change to life adjustments post-pandemic. As such, it’s important that we nurture them the best way we can with a carefully-considered wellness program and practical support.

Mental, physical, and emotional health

Making sure the walls of our workplace are supportive and inclusive is a huge priority for us as a business. We’re held accountable by our strict CARE values: echoing cooperation, agility, responsibility, and entrepreneurship for a better world as a team.

It’s further part of our holistic approach spanning all corners of the mental, physical, and emotional health of our team. And it’s guided by empathic leadership – which is essential for fostering such an environment. Upon being empathetic, we help identify and address employee concerns before they escalate. This is a core role for our designated Health Champions, members of our team who collect this feedback from the wider team and bring it to senior management so we can address it and create necessary change.

Building a resilient team

Resilience needs a well-rounded strategy to truly ignite. For us, this means offering varying styles of support and flexibility within that.

We have an online platform called Flourish which gives our employees access to a portal which hosts webinars and workshops. They can access this in their own time and enjoy dedicated one-to-one sessions with an expert of a particular field. We extended this earlier in the year by working with a registered nutritionist offering both quarterly lunch & learn sessions and  individual one-to-ones, offering personalised support with practical guidance. Our nutrition sessions were received really positively, with one team member sharing that the 20 minute power-session as more helpful than years of trying to enforce other lifestyle change.

Our strategy is underpinned by a flexible and hybrid working policy, and reduced hours on Fridays throughout summer for extra downtime. Getting together as a team is equally important. We held an office quiz just this month for an hour’s lunchtime laughter towards the end of a very busy period.

Promoting creativity

Satisfaction stretches beyond support and into challenge. The way we shape our roles at Ecotone is individualistic and person-centred, with a view to maximising creativity and avoiding any boxing-in. This looks like a flexible path in development to steer employees in the direction they choose to go in.

Having an empathetic people model is right for a new world of work, from avoiding absenteeism to helping teams thrive creatively and problem solve in their roles. Ecotone is driven by its mission to protect and nurture biodiversity and as a team, we’re more engaged to work together towards that goal ourselves.