ESG in Action: From nice to necessary: The business case for wellbeing

Helen Hodgkinson (00:02)

Make sure you've got time in that diary to do those connections with people because a quick five-minute moment can reveal everything.

Alex Holsgrove Jones (00:12)

Welcome to ESG in Action. I'm Alex Holsgrove Jones, Knowledge Partner and ESG Lead at TLT, and today I'm joined by Helen Hodgkinson, TLT's own Chief People Officer. Helen has a wealth of experience leading large corporate organisations to do better for their people, planet, and local communities. Today we'll be talking about wellbeing, why it's important, and what organisations can do to support their people in the ways that actually matter. Helen, thanks so much for joining us. I'm really looking forward to our conversation. So, can we begin by introducing what you do and why you do it? What gets you out of bed every morning?

Helen Hodgkinson (00:52)

Of course we can Alex, and hi to you, isn't this lovely because I know you so well. So, my name as you know is Helen Hodgkinson, I'm the Chief People Officer here at TLT. I am absolutely blessed to be able to look after our people agenda but also what we call our places agenda, which is all about the workplace as well and that's because TLT what we know is where you work, how you work and how you operate is an incredibly important part of how you perform.  

And we know that that includes everything we do as we normally context in HR, but also about when you come to work, how actually you can do all the things that you might miss from working differently. What gets me out of bed in the morning is the ability to positively affect even just one person's life. You know, again, I'm very, very lucky - I'm allowed to do things at an enterprise level that really have an impact. But the thing that makes my heart sing is when I bump into somebody in the lift and they go, do you know what, that thing really benefited me, and that is what gets me out in the morning.

Alex Holsgrove Jones (01:54)

Great and we talk a lot at TLT about having a holistic approach to wellbeing. What does that mean for you?

Helen Hodgkinson (02:01)

It's so, we all know well-being when you look at it physically and you look at it mentally there's a correlation, but actually there are so many other significant things which is about helping people reach their peak performance. Now, our job isn't to make everybody as well as they possibly can be they've got lives and that's how they need to work that out for themselves, but as a workplace we're responsible for helping people to understand, correct, maybe us being able to provide services are things that may affect them or can help them perform better.  

So that might be financial, that might be spiritual, it might be our opportunity to offer things that are related to physical health. It absolutely is about understanding that we as a business ask a lot of our people and therefore from a mental health, mental wealth basis, there'll be pigs and troughs. So, you know it is absolutely about that whole piece, and understanding how they fit together.

Alex Holsgrove Jones (03:02)

Absolutely, and we know how mental and physical health are so closely connected. And I just want to touch upon the stereotype or misconception that physical health is linked to men's health, but mental is linked to women's. We know that well-being for everybody is associated with both the mental and the physical, regardless of gender. So why is it important that we address these sorts of misconceptions, both generally and more specifically in the workplace?

Helen Hodgkinson (03:30)

This is when I drop into being quite passionate - so bear with me, bear with me. Look, men's and women's health is different. And I am really proud that we've started to recognise that here at TLT and generally in society. You know, women's health begins at puberty. It ends somewhere near as you're ending your career and with the menopause. And actually, there's parts of that in between. Actually, they are very different from a characteristic basis to that of men's mental health. It doesn't make them more important. Men's health for me, and I feel most passionate and if we're not all worrying about this then I don't know what we're doing. The fact that suicide is greatest in men in their middle age, and actually is a very, very silent part of our society currently, we should be really worried about that.  

And it starts to, for me, correlate then towards identity, it starts to correlate towards equality, it's about everybody being represented, being able to have a voice, being able to put your hand up, being able to speak, being able to contribute, you know, just all agendas have to be addressed. And I go back to what we talked about previously, which is actually all those different spiritual, financial, physical, they all contribute to what is very, very different agendas, whether you're a man or a woman.

Alex Holsgrove Jones (05:01)

Yeah. And what can organisations do or do better? Can you give an example of a wellbeing initiative at TLT or somewhere else in your career that you're most proud of?

Helen Hodgkinson (05:13)

So there's two parts to that. So the one at TLT, I'm so proud of the fact that we've really upped the game in relation to financial well-being, particularly in the environment we find ourselves in now. No one wants to admit that they're not quite covering their money and they're struggling a little. You don't need to. What we do is we tailor our benefits package to make sure either we can give advice and support, or actually we can replace stuff that people are finding hard to access. So one of the really, really simple but most effective interventions we've made was providing all our employees with simply health. And that actually just covering all those things that sometimes you can't quite get to in your budgets, whether that's your eyes, it's your teeth, it's your back, it's all those things that actually are super important. That, I am really proud of.  

And you add to that though actually from a woman's perspective, and I don't always sit comfortably with this, but I've started to recognise my, I don't even like saying role model, but anyway role model status, in relation to starting to talk about women's health. And particularly that bit around, actually for me it's the menopause, for my girls at the moment it's puberty. And actually, there is a moment where when you are going through some of what's very normal, natural women's cycles, pretty difficult to be at work and be at your best. Talking about that, having the opportunity to just raise that awareness, I haven't got all the answers by the way, but again just that ability to connect with everybody, and actually just allow people to start that conversation is so important. One affair when I started to talk about it, sometimes I had no choice but to do so, I also found that men often came to talk to me about it because it was affecting their wives, and therefore just wanted to talk through what they were experiencing at home as well as what they might have been observing in me.

Alex Holsgrove Jones (07:08)

Yeah, absolutely. I think that role model status is so, important because if our leaders are speaking about it, it gives other people a permission to do so, doesn't it? And makes it part of the natural conversation, it's not something that needs to be hidden. You don't need to hide things when you come to work, it's quite fine to say, actually I can't come in today because I'm having a tricky time.

Helen Hodgkinson (07:30)

Or even, and you know Alex how passionate I am about the flexibility agenda, when you don't have to say it. Because actually, your business trusts you enough to organise your day, your pattern, your workplace, your place of work, in order that you can meet all the needs. Because if you do that, actually what you'll find is your people will contribute constantly and at their best. And that at the cornerstone of that is trust. And actually, if you don't feel comfortable telling your manager you can't because of dot dot dot dot dot - you shouldn't have to. You know the reality is as long as you are contributing to your bottom line and achieving your objectives that's what matters.

Alex Holsgrove Jones (08:07)

Absolutely. Now, some businesses find it difficult to allocate resources to their wellbeing initiatives for a number of reasons, and that could be money or time, or even still working to shift organisational culture to make wellbeing a priority. How do you navigate the balance between running a business as a for-profit enterprise and ensuring that your people's wellbeing is prioritised?

Helen Hodgkinson (08:32)

There's three things for me. Often in this space we will design policies and will design frameworks and approaches to deal with those who aren't positively contributing. Just don't do that, because actually they're a minority of your business. Most people get up in the morning wanting to do their utmost and possible best on behalf of the firm or your business, whatever you want to call it. The second part is in your benefits package always make sure that you're linking, because you will always, you'll have one in whatever shape or form, link that benefits package to the trends or the issues that you know that either we're dealing with as a society or we're dealing with as a business. That's the easiest way. The third one is your colleagues, your employee networks, are your secret weapon. And actually they are your best voice. They're the best people to keep and hold you to account, help you understand where you should be shaping your agenda, but also if you are getting a bit stuck and for what it’s worth I don’t at TLT but if you are getting a bit stuck with releasing resources or investment, it's your colleagues voice that will help the board understand that.

Alex Holsgrove Jones (09:44)

Absolutely. Now kind of linked to that, a number of our guests have spoken about how challenging ESG reporting can be in practice. How do you approach that, particularly when you're trying to measure something as personal and individual as wellbeing?

Helen Hodgkinson (09:59)

And look, we sit on a data lake, everybody does. It’s not that it can't be, you know, we can measure pretty much anything, can't we? I think the key to this is what you're choosing to measure. And how actually it's going to influence your agenda. Yeah, for us in any kind of people team, you start off with your basics, your sickness, attendance. You know, actually there's a number of varying methods that we can do that. Some, again, people will tell us as part of that, around why they're away, what that looks like. We do know that actually we've got people who are in our eyesight who are formerly unwell. So we call them well-being cases and that's how we manage them. We keep an eye on them, we look at the trends. We use all of that to inform what our agenda looks like. You add to that, now we're a business that measures people's time. You know, we actually can look at that time and we can realise those who are significantly over trading. And actually, again, they need to be a point of reference for us and a point of focus for us.  

So there's a number of things, I think the one thing in the world that we live in now, in the whole of the data analytics, it's not just about measuring static data. That's quite easy to do. It's about keeping your eye on your pulse on the rhythm of the business. So actually you measure everything that's in front of you, but also you use that to indicate and forecast. Because, you know, your best indicator of future performance is past performance, so look at your past data and then you'll be able to indicate trends.

Alex Holsgrove Jones (11:33)

Great, thanks Helen. That's really useful and a really insightful way of using that data that we all have access to now in our businesses. Now, just to finish, we always like to leave listeners with something practical that they can do to drive positive change. So what's one simple step our listeners could take in the next month to improve their own wellbeing and make a positive difference for their colleagues as well?

Helen Hodgkinson (11:59)

The positive difference on the colleagues, just ask someone how they are. Take that time to do so. I am a passionate advocate of the flexibility agenda, I really am, I just think it is absolutely the future of the workplace. But you do miss stuff, and actually, you blend working from home from working in the office. When you're in the office, make sure you've got time in that diary - I'm not always good at it by the way - but make sure you've got time in that diary to do those connections with people because a quick five-minute moment can reveal everything and face-to-face, we’re human beings, face-to-face really matters. You can pick so much more up than you can on the screen. That is my you know the top tip and you know what you'll know the moment you say how are you, you know by the response how people really are, you know whatever words they say you'll be able to see what that really means.

Again, depending on where you sit in a business, and it doesn't matter whether you're senior or not, you've still got a network of people who are going to recognise and see what you're doing. So, make sure you prioritise a bit of you too, because they will see that. My team know, again I'm at a point in my life where I do need to go to the gym. I'm not a fitness addict by any stretch of the imagination, I'm just keeping things moving. But I do three times a week in the mornings because it's the best time for me to go - I do gym, I do swim. What my team will tell me is they know when I've been because apparently I'm a bit of nicer person to be around. Better than when I've just driven in down the M32. However, those things are really important. They're easy for them to fall apart. It's easy for them not to be there, you know, when you're particularly busy but you do really need it because that actually is the bit that keeps one, you at your peak performance, the second part actually is your impact on others.

Alex Holsgrove Jones (13:51)

Yeah, that role modelling again coming through. So you know, being really visible in your diary, I have one I use too - a school pick up, for example. And, you know, people know I cannot go to meetings then. And that's accepted because we have such a fabulous sort of flexibility around work. So yeah, thank you so much, Helen. It's been so great to talk to you today. I’m sure we could have carried on for many, many hours. But thank you for your time

Helen Hodgkinson (14:17)

Alex, you’re a superstar, thank you.

Alex Holsgrove Jones (14:19)

And thank you to our listeners in. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe and share. And until next time, keep driving positive change and putting ESG into action.