The focus of this blog, part 3 of my blog series on Making a Difference is our own personal well-being.  This is particularly topical in the week of so called ‘Blue Monday’ which is claimed to be the most depressing day of the year! 

As busy consultants, we can be under a lot of pressure.  We are delivering multiple projects for customers with high expectations whilst trying to maintain a good work life balance and develop our own skills.

But we can’t possible do the best job for our customers if we are tired, unhealthy and stress out.  It is important that we do whatever we can to keep our staff and ourselves physically and mentally health and happy.  So at Hyphen8, we are increasing our focus on well-being in 2020 in the following ways:

Staff Benefits

• More time off – taking regular time off is critical to re-charge our batteries.  We give employees an additional day off for every year that they work for us up to a maximum of 5.  They also get their birthday off if it falls on a week day

• Weekly well-being tips – from the beginning of this year, I am writing a weekly blog to share my experiences and tips during my own journey to better well-being (if you are interested you can read these at zingtoday.co.uk

• Well-being allowance – each member of staff can claim expenses each month towards an activity that contributes to a healthier body and mind such as sports club membership, yoga classes, massage or therapy

• Personal development – we have always conducted sessions with staff every 6 months to create a programme to identify individual training and development needs.  This year we plan to include more opportunities for tailored mentoring and coaching

• Sense of purpose – often a key element of a person’s wellbeing.  This year is Hyphen8’s 8th anniversary so we are ramping up our 8% Pledge to give staff even more flexibility to donate their time to benefit non-profits (read more in Part 1 of this blog series)

We all need to remember to look after ourselves and I would love to hear your ideas on other initiatives to encourage well-being in the workplace?