I wasn’t there, but Greg Smart who has a very useful walking safari app, told me about the Good Day at Work Conference which took place last week.
If like me, you weren’t there, then here’s a review from The Good Day at Work website which gives us a flavour of what was discussed and what we missed. Definitely one for next year perhaps?
‘We were delighted to chew the fat with a veritable host of wellbeing experts, change gurus and HR trailblazers at this year’s Good Day at Work Annual Conference on Wednesday. LSO St. Luke’s provided a stunning backdrop for the one-day festival focussing on everything inspirational and practical about building a wellbeing strategy
As Prof Sir Cary Cooper (knighted only the day before!) discussed in his opening speech, it was great to see so many like-minded people sharing a forum to delve even deeper into the world of wellbeing. Our first keynote of the day Clarke Carlisle – former PFA chairman and mental health campaigner – gripped the main hall with an incredibly moving account of his own struggle with depression and how he overcame those personal demons. His message was clear and later echoed by Head of Personnel Development at Saracens, David Priestly: we need to humanise mental health as a norm, and personal experience will always outweigh statistical analysis. (Watch the video below)
Both World Vision and British Airways spoke at length about the ways they are mainstreaming wellbeing in their organisations by taking a strategic approach. World Vision discussed the importance prevention, or fixing the root while the sun shines, while BA revealed how they have integrated wellbeing into key processes such as performance management and empowered their staff through a “strong strategic narrative.”
Ben Moss and Julia Hobsbawm delivered a riveting insight into the power of social connections to a packed room. We don’t often think about the factors that determine of our social health, and the discussion gave new currency to the idea that social connectedness and networking is essential to our wellbeing and will prove to be an emerging zeitgeist alongside physical and mental health. We also heard an interesting talk from David Lammy MP on making wellbeing the heart of all parliamentary policy, and Prof Paul Dolan on the idea of life satisfaction and how we distinguish between pleasure and purpose to achieve true happiness.
Jonathan Goldsmith got our creative juices flowing at lunchtime, shortly followed by an extremely entertaining gambit by Eddie Obeng. Eddie’s energy was infectious and hammered home his overarching point that “you can’t manage wellbeing in isolation!” Wellbeing is rooted among all the disparate areas of our lives, which is why it’s so important to take a holistic approach when considering how to develop a strategy that is central to any business model.
We were also delighted to welcome co-founder of the Movember Foundation, JC, over from Australia to dive straight into the thinking behind the charity and how they grew from a group of guys sat in a bar to become the global face of men’s health.
The underlying current of the entire day was to link physical, psychological and social health to provide a comprehensive definition of wellbeing, and give our audience a clear idea of all areas that wellbeing affects. We hope to have struck a balance between the importance of wellbeing for the individual and the organisation, and how it is integral to the health and performance of both.’
