From working on the shop floor to working on Wellbeing!
I did lots of retail jobs throughout university and worked my way up to Supervisor level. Once I graduated with a Masters in Human Resource Management, I started off my office career in a joint role with a small company: ‘PA to the CEO & HR Officer.’ This was a great first opportunity for me. I gained lots of confidence and I was the only one in the company to be working on HR so it was a steep learning curve! I built up some great experience there, learning very quickly that being organised was essential for me, and was eventually promoted to an HR Officer role full time (dealing with a wide variety of topics: Recruitment, Policy Writing, general day-to-day HR queries, Performance Management, Annual Leave and Benefits for example.)
I decided I wanted to have a bit more creative freedom and specialise in the fields of Wellbeing and Employee Engagement as those were the projects I most enjoyed and could be creative with! I also wanted to try working in a larger organisation with more of a team around me! (Turns out being the only one in a company working in HR can be quite lonely…)
Enter First Central! I started off here as a Culture & Engagement Officer and have recently been promoted to Senior Wellbeing & Engagement Executive.
I design and manage First Central’s Wellbeing Strategy.
I design and manage First Central’s Wellbeing Strategy, planning events, initiatives, and communications throughout the year. In my current role, I am responsible for developing and designing a data-led and evidence-based Wellbeing Programme for our colleagues. I work closely with our team of Mental Health First Aiders (MHFAs), organising activities throughout the year. This could involve things such as Wellbeing Week (or as we like to call it, YOUfest) and other initiatives such as Mental Health Awareness Week, World Sleep Day, and Stress Awareness Month.
I use lots of data in this role (from Quarterly Pulse Surveys, Event Feedback, Sickness and Absence details) to make sure that we’re giving colleagues what they want to see and what would benefit their own wellbeing. We don’t focus on just one area of Wellbeing, instead covering a wide range of wellbeing-related topics throughout the year (Mental Health, Stress & Resilience, Financial Wellbeing, Nutrition, Social Wellbeing etc.)
Giving colleagues opportunities to learn new things about themselves.
I really love my job and working on trying to improve colleagues’ experiences at work is something I genuinely am passionate about. We spend so much of our time at work so why shouldn’t we try and make it positive?
I also enjoy that I tend to get instant feedback in this role, either from an event or piece of communication, and hearing about how an initiative may have helped a colleague receive some help for themselves is really rewarding. I also enjoy being creative and getting to write comms and blog posts, so thinking of new ways to engage with colleagues throughout the year is a fun challenge.
Don’t be afraid of being brave!
I’m a natural introvert and I don’t think anyone in my personal life would describe me as outgoing or confident! But, I’ve found in my career so far that the occasions where I’ve been brave - whether that’s deciding to move away from HR (even though I studied a Masters in the topic!) or saying yes to presenting in front of a crowd of senior leaders - have been the times where I’ve grown and developed the most. I’m at a point in my career where I’m eager to grow and progress, so being brave is something I try to make a conscious effort to do.
It can be scary to say yes to things you might usually shy away from but, by getting more practice and exposure to these things, over time they naturally begin to feel a bit easier. Even if things don’t always go to plan, it’s all part of the journey.
Coming 7th in the UK's Best Workplaces for Wellbeing List!
I'm most proud of developing our Wellbeing offering for colleagues, resulting in us placing 7th in the Super Large Category of Great Place to Work’s list of the UK’s Best Workplaces to work for Wellbeing.
Before I joined the team, we already had a Wellbeing programme colleagues were aware of. When I came on board, we were able to dedicate a lot more time and resource to our Wellbeing Strategy and try things we’d never done before. Feedback throughout the year was positive from our colleagues and I was really pleased that we recently achieved a place in the top 10 Best UK Workplaces to Work for Wellbeing list, an initiative run by Great Places to Work. Being the only Insurance company in the top 10 is also a pretty nifty achievement.
We receive fantastic internal feedback from our colleagues on Wellbeing so to have our efforts validated and recognised externally too was exciting! I’m proud and feel lucky to work in a company where a huge emphasis is placed on the colleague experience and colleagues’ Wellbeing too.
