When you start your own business and follow your passion you meet and connect with some really interesting and inspiring people. One entrepreneur I met recently asked me about my back story and up until now I hadn’t contemplated such an exercise. So here’s my story and the spark that ignited my passion in organisational wellbeing and resilience.

Humble beginnings

My backstory starts with quite an ordinary beginnings. I grew up in South Yorkshire in England living in a hard working and industrious community and despite hard times people would always use humour to take on a brighter perspectives in life.

Known for their ‘grit’ Yorkshire folk always look on the bright side with a wicked sense of humour, a strong work ethic and boundless resilience moving forward despite constant adversity.

At the age of 18 I was convinced I wanted to be a psychologist and a computer programmer hacking my way through life on a humble BBC computer. My dad was always a great coach and listened and questioned if these pursuits were about my interest in computer games (software developer) and also if I just enjoyed a bit of banter with friends (psychologist).

Curious about technology convergence and psychology

So I opted to study a science based degree in Business and Technology at Sheffield to satisfy my broad interest in technology and commerce and also to discover what specific passions I might pursue after graduation. I graduated in 1998 and became fascinated with the convergence of Communications, Entertainment and Technology that was an emergent trend and it was clear that this t’Internet thing was going to take off.

As my career gained momentum through various Product, Marketing and Strategy roles and taking on greater people and business performance accountabilities I started to tune in to the more human aspects that featured in the workplace.

What is workplace wellbeing? How is it measured?….

What influenced and helped people and teams to perform ‘well’ at work? What is wellbeing? What is resilience? How do you measure this? How do you build and develop these skills and resources? How do you balance human centred duties of care and compassion with short term financial performance goals for shareholders?

I looked for great people leader role models and also discovered sociopathic and toxic leaders in the workplace too. There was always a tension between business performance expectations and the resources people were provided to succeed in their roles. I often found through my experience and talking to others that there was often a lack of compassion, support and emotional intelligence at work.

Ad hoc yoga and meditation classes were often cited as ‘wellbeing programs’ in addition to discounts on gym memberships and meditation apps. Whilst they were great improvements on previous years and were welcome additions, they appeared reactive and tactical responses to underlying employee mental wellbeing.

Countless Employee Engagement surveys rarely captured wellbeing or resilience and consistently positioned EAP programs as a one size fits all approach to address employee wellbeing issues especially during restructures.

Lofty words about ‘resilience’ and ‘wellbeing’ were often used but were never defined, standardised, measured or universally rolled out as part of a broader transformation programs. In periods of organisational change team members were often treated as commodities or resources on a spreadsheet and rarely like human beings.

Scientific frameworks influencing Wellbeing and Resilience

In June 2019 I developed an interest in the science of wellbeing and resilience when I met the Co-Founders of a wellbeing start-up, whatsright.ai. Rory Darkins and Graham Daking were part of a social impact innovation program, Optus Future Makers.

Both had a passion and vision to scale science based coaching practices to anyone who needed resources and skills to become more resilient and improve their own wellbeing through a personalised AI driven mobile platform. After I left Optus following a re-organisation I felt incredibly passionate about helping people and organisations find ways to develop better wellbeing and resilience skills and resources

My mission today

With the current pandemic conditions placing increasing pressures on people in the workplace and at home, I wanted to help people and organisations thrive and succeed by educating and applying effective resilience and wellbeing skills, practices supported by innovative digital wellness platforms. In December last year I launched my own Wellbeing and Resilience Coaching and Consulting practice – Wellbeinz

Today I actively promote and practice a ‘holistic’ and science based approach to wellbeing and resilience which combines neuroscience, positive psychology and leverages personalised digital platforms to proactively help people to form new habits. Practicing simple daily micro exercises to sustain, track and improve their wellbeing and resilience with the help of structured and personalised digital wellbeing platforms.

I have also found that with my work in the local community helping people with mental health conditions and through my 1:1 coaching sessions there is a lack of wellbeing literacy and that introducing simple daily practices can make a big difference over time.

A competitive advantage and psychological safety obligation

I believe strongly that progressive and successful companies can both succeed commercially whilst supporting the needs of their ‘team members’ in a more intelligent, personal, empathic and proactive using science based approaches rather than todays incumbent practices.

As workplaces will be expected to demonstrate greater levels of proactive and sustainable approaches to psychological safety in the workplace (ISO 45003) wellbeing we become a critical business priority and less about ticking a box and just relying on reactive Employee Assistance Programs.

Each week I have new conversations with a number of inspirational business leaders taking a more progressive and humanistic approach to workplace wellbeing.

I recently listened to Michael Schneider, CEO of Bunnings Group Limited on the Caring CEO podcast, who’s outlook I found authentic and refreshing especially with the way he talks about his ‘Team’ / ‘work family’. It’s clear when you see leaders talk about people in their business as ‘Team mates’ rather than ‘Resources’ or ‘Staff’ that this is an organisation that has wellbeing integrated as a critical business priority and believes that this is not only the right thing today but creates a competitive advantage. Fostering authentic personal connections with your team and lifting organisational capability through the roll out of transformative wellbeing and resilience programs is increasingly coming into focus for many organisations and is increasingly being viewed as a strategic imperative rather than a nice to have.

Workplace wellbeing reimagined – what’s next?

For Executives, people leaders and HR professionals join Rory Darkins and I on a conversation about emerging trends shaping more personalised and proactive models of workplace wellbeing – Workplace Wellbeing Reimagined. What would happen if we treated our team mates like they were Olympians and Professional athletes and had mental skills coaches to help them grow and achieve their goals Click here to register

I’m hosting a series of Workplace Wellbeing Webinars with a number of thought leaders sharing their views, stories and best practices from startup founders to the public sector. Feel free to contact me if you would like to join the conversation and share your learnings and insights.  

Keep well

Chris