Some top tips for ensuring employee and business wellbeing in 2024, from Fiona Armstrong, Chief People Officer, Moneypenny

Moneypenny, leaders in outsourced calls and communications has been consistently recognised for its people strategy, and its leadership team firmly believes that employee wellbeing and satisfaction is central to achieving business success in 2024 and beyond.

Fiona Armstrong, Chief People Officer for Moneypenny comments, “As we near the end of the year, it’s a natural time to reflect, reinvent, re-energise and refresh your wellbeing initiatives and ensure they are more than an exercise in box-ticking.” 

Here are Fiona’s top tips for ensuring employee wellbeing:

• Build a safe, comfortable culture.

At Moneypenny we’re recognised for our culture, and for creating a place where people feel at home, safe, comfortable, and a part of something; creating a positive environment where people can thrive, enables companies to thrive.

Wellbeing is neither a standalone function nor a one-off event, it should be ever-present in a business’s DNA. At our company we call it ‘Moneypenny Love’ and every day we empower, tailor our approaches to different communities, and make sure that our teams feel valued, safe, and listened to.

• Responsibility is a team game.

Leaders need to lead by example, communicate clearly and create an environment where people feel comfortable to speak up. It is the role of HR leaders to steer the agenda, the management team to ensure that everyone is set up to succeed, the line managers to listen and spot any signs of problems, and employees themselves to participate.

• Recognise success.

There is a powerful connection between recognition and wellbeing – it leads to increased engagement and productivity but also to employees feeling more valued, supported and less stressed, which in turn improves wellbeing. And this applies to recognition from above, but also from your peers and for those giving recognition. Recognition encourages everyone to feel empowered to be their best, and it fosters belonging and inclusion.

Ensure that recognition is fair, personalised and happens at all levels, from WOW chats to handwritten thank-yous, team meals, parties, random acts of kindness and much more.

• Reward success.

After recognition comes reward. At Moneypenny we offer PennyPerks: a Pick n Mix of benefits tailored to individual needs. We also offer free breakfasts and healthy subsidised lunches, as well as counselling, annual flu jabs and much more.  This Christmas, for a bit of fun, we’re turning our treehouse meeting room into a giant snowball pit, where every week different teams will take out a ball which represents a fun prize, such as a free air fryer, cuddly toy or a weekend away for the whole team, to reward them for their hard work throughout the year. And the reward for business is a happy, healthy and productive team.

• Turn your people into advocates.

Engagement makes your people your advocates, and has a somewhat synergistic relationship with wellbeing, with one enabling the other. Employee engagement means positive culture, increased retention, better long-term relationships, and a healthier bottom line.  Knowing your people as the individuals is key to this, and at Moneypenny we like to hear everyone’s views. We have airy open-plan offices and an open door policy and use Workplace by Meta to ensure all our people are updated regularly and that anyone can post their views. We also have a Business Counsel and Little Things Committee where we meet for lunch, or drinks in our onsite pub, to share ideas and brainstorm new ones.

• Provide opportunities.

People are generally happier if they feel they have opportunities to grow and progress. This includes promotion, education (internally and externally), and also opportunities for secondments, and experiences internationally. At Moneypenny, we offer placements in our US office and vice-versa to support our culture and share knowledge and experiences.

• Ensure a healthy work-life balance for all.

Work-life balance seems to have been around for eons. To support employees and help them achieve true balance in their lives, offer flexible working arrangements, encourage breaks, tailor your support to communities and generations, and the same goes for providing resources, setting realistic deadlines, and most importantly, leading by example.

Fiona concludes: “Invest in these principles and you’ll setup yourself and your people to succeed in the business landscape of the future. Happy people equals happy clients, equals happy bottom line.”

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Picture is of Wendy Swash, Chief Operating Officer at Moneypenny and Fiona Armstrong, Chief People Officer in the Moneypenny meeting room which for 6 weeks has been turned into a giant snowball pit, where every week different teams will take out a ball which represents a fun prize, such as a free air fryer, cuddly toy or a weekend away for the whole team, to reward them for their hard work throughout the year.