As an industry we all can contribute to society and create a better world for ourselves and future generations. Senior leaders and clients paying attention to employee wellbeing is playing a critical role in driving change towards a healthier, more productive, and inclusive environment.

So how is wellbeing established in a company workplace, and what makes it a high priority for any business? We can source the granular level ingredients to wellbeing from core values of what holds society together: fairness, dignity, respect, community, responsibility, leadership, service, kindness, honesty, health, safety, inclusivity and equal opportunity.

When looking at these values, surely looking after your staff wellbeing is the right thing to do.

The four essential needs to achieving personal wellbeing are:

1. Mental Wellbeing
2. Physical Wellbeing
3. Social Wellbeing
4. Financial Wellbeing

How we support each of those areas is critical to achieving a happier, healthier workplace.

Our four core approaches to establishing wellbeing are:

1. A fair, inclusive, and friendly working practice with clearly defined roles and responsibilities.
2. Provision and promotion of a healthy and safe working environment, physically and mentally.
3. An active approach towards personal development and individual care of our employees.
4. A united expression of shared social values towards one another and our wider community.

Building team cohesion based on common societal values will contribute towards wellbeing within a company, and with it the following commercial benefits:

Strengthening in staff commitment and efficiency
Productivity is likely to be higher in a team that feels valued and listened to, responding more effectively to their work targets.

Optimised staff retention
An environment that nurtures a happier, fulfilled team develops staff loyalty and builds motivation to achieve company goals that will help retain staff longer and thus minimize recruitment costs.

Less sick leave and absenteeism
A healthy workplace, mentally and physically, where workloads are fairly managed will enable a team to better cope with their work/life balance, meaning less required sick leave and sustainable work attendance.

A stronger team
Provision of personal development and training strategies through good management practice can help build resilience in a team to withstand everyday pressures and stresses. Making available mental health services to the workplace, providing advice and implementing wellbeing strategies will help build positive outcomes when issues arise from struggling individuals.

Enhanced reputation
A company that engages in and promotes strong values for employee wellbeing will be more successful in achieving higher quality recruitment and project an attractive progressive culture to clients sharing similar values.

DL M&E run a range of different initiatives that aim to promote wellbeing in our workplace, and we continue to develop what we do.

It’s our mission to provide a workplace where:

. . . the wellbeing of each team member is a priority across our business

. . . employees can talk freely without judgment, about going through mental health struggles, personal tragedies, life changing events, or carrying difficult care roles.

. . . there’s always an open door to communicate difficulties and that there are resources provided to give practical support, enabling them to find help and stay in work.

. . .  flexible working is provided where and when appropriate, and where a work-life balance is encouraged.

. . . employees understand what is expected of them in their job roles and areas of responsibilities.

. . .  the business, teams and individual roles are structured to ensure workloads are fair and reasonable.

. . . opportunity is given for personal development, so they feel progressive in their career and able to further their impact for the company.

. . . people can feel themselves, in a working culture that is inclusive and welcoming.

. . . everyone feels safe from bullying, harassment and other forms of discrimination, protected by a zero-tolerance policy.

Four future challenges to employee wellbeing and how we can respond:

1. The squeeze on living standards is creating financial pressure points, especially for families, potentially meaning an impact  for companies through rising salary costs. With increasing financial pressures and a fragile economic outlook, a decline in mental health for many looks likely, as people struggle. Companies will need to be engaged with wellbeing initiatives to help build personal resilience.
2. Ongoing lack of diversity and gender equality within construction remains a future challenge, with our industry struggling to attract wider inclusion. The consequence of this is the potential isolation minority groups may feel, where there is a lack of representation in the workplace. This can affect wellbeing. More can be done, such as through positive profiling of those minority groups that have successfully integrated into a construction work environment: to attract more representation. For women, construction is perceived as a male dominated industry, which continues to influence their successful recruitment. This can isolate some women in the workplace. Despite this, there are encouraging improvements in diversity and gender representation.
3. The rise of AI will impact many working practices, which for some could be perceived as a threat, or for others create a pressure of expectation to understand. Reviewing the impact AI can or will have is both essential to optimising business processes, but also will highlight areas of retraining that may be necessary to enable team transition. This will help alleviate apprehension and promote job security.
4. Working from Home (WFH) was promoted by the Covid crisis and has left a legacy of many workers still working from home. For especially full-time WFH workers, there is a concern for their mental health where there aren’t the benefits of being in a more directly collaborative team environment with the relational advantages this brings. WFH presents challenges for companies who prefer in-office working practice, where the fast-paced immediacy of inter-departmental communications are vital for dealing with large and complex workloads: something which is common within the construction industry. We can respond to this, by ensuring future recruitment focusses on building collaborative environments, and incentivises more in-office working. Conversely, there also needs to be consideration for the flexibility and cost savings available by allowing employees to WFH, but perhaps encouraging a hybrid mix of in-office and WFH workdays, to encourage inclusion, relationships, collaboration, and wellbeing.

To meet our wellbeing targets this is a snapshot of our initiatives over 2024

Charity Days
‍Giving is a proven method of achieving a sense of personal fulfilment and wellbeing. We run a number of charity events each year, which pull our team together and helps nurture a sense of wellbeing. This year we have asked our team to propose charities they personally care about that we can support. This July our team will be doing a sponsored walk for a team member’s chosen charity, Fortalice, a frontline domestic abuse charity that helps children and adults in abusive situations. Other charity event days are organised throughout the year, which involve fun, team building challenges and personal fulfilment in helping others.

Department Team Building Days
‍We provide team building days for each department: for instance, our commercial department chose to spend their day playing team golf to build connection, another department chose Go Ape, conquering heights and other similar fun events for our design and operations teams to spend together, which builds a sense of personal value and connection: essential to wellbeing in the workplace.

Apprenticeship Days
‍Our apprentices can be particularly vulnerable to the strains of starting careers in construction. We therefore set a full day aside in the year, bringing them off site and into our office with a purpose of getting their group and individual feedback on their apprentice experience to date. We provided an interactive group survey presentation using Mentimeter, which was a mix of fun questions with more serious questions relating to their personal wellbeing. We used this survey to help evaluate how they are, and this was further supported through individual meetings with a director, the goal of which was to encourage them and allow them to voice concerns.

Company-wide Mental Health Survey
‍We’ve produced a detailed anonymous Mental Health Survey for delivery to the whole team, which is currently in review, as part of our wellbeing review programme. The intention is to detect concerns and provide sign-posting for those struggling to practical resources. We promote Able Futures, our partner for providing mental health support.

Increasing Annual Leave
‍This year we made a significant board decision to increase our base annual holiday leave by 5 days, which was rolled out earlier this year. We trust this will significantly enhance wellbeing and retention across the company.

Company Newsletter
‍We frequently feedback to our team positive testimonials from our clients, which contributes to their emotional wellbeing and job satisfaction, from designers through to site engineers. This is why we encourage all our clients to provide project completion feedback. We also highlight our best works, which promotes pride and job satisfaction.  

Personal Professional Development (PPD)
‍Personal professional development is offered as a way of promoting personal wellbeing: We have nurtured a number of staff towards upskilling, offering horizons for career progression and giving our team opportunities to develop new skills through sponsored training, encouraging growth in their current roles. Having refreshed goals in new learning and objectives helps promote wellbeing when managed correctly with workload.

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Treat days!
‍Occasionally there is an office treat day, which might be ordering pizza, rounds of doughnuts or a SubWay for our 70 office staff. We like to demonstrate appreciation to our hard-working team. If a person has a birthday, we have a culture where they are encouraged to bring cakes, treats or savouries that the team can dig into. It’s another subtle way we promote togetherness, belonging and wellbeing.

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Dress Down Fridays
‍Encouraging our team to be themselves, embracing individuality and rewarding a long working week, all staff on a Friday are able to dress in casual, comfortable clothing. Small gestures add to long term wellbeing.

Working Hours Flexibility
‍Some of our team have young children and challenging days juggling parental/school responsibilities, and others with other occasional pressing circumstances: we provide work from home flexibility as and when necessary. This relieves pressure points and promotes wellbeing when needed. In some cases we offer 4-day working weeks.

Equalised working hours
‍We’ve reduced hours to match other working hours within the business for commercial department.

‍Phase Retirement Plans
‍Phase retirement plans are being implemented for a number of employees, including reduced working hours, working from home, and in two circumstances the ability to work from other countries whilst the retirees are setting up their retirement plans abroad.

Office / Workplace Improvements
‍Replacement of furniture within the office for more ergonomic chairs promotes comfort each and every day. Replacement of Screens within meeting rooms, for better clarity screens to reduce eye strain and users experience. Treadmill and standing desk made available to use for all office employees. Outside furniture, to enable employees to take a true break from the office environment during their lunch and encouraging them not to eat at their desks.

Through these wellbeing initiatives, we promote a culture of care, being fair and valuing one another through mutual support. But we won’t stop there, we will continue to develop our wellbeing targets in the future, and listen to our staff to help guide our strategies in the right direction.

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