Unlocking the Benefits of Employee Wellbeing Webinars

 A decade ago when I worked in human resources the closest I came to employee well-being was subsidised gym membership and free fruit! When I worked for Debenhams on Oxford Street as an HR Advisor I did receive a 25% discount card which I considered a brilliant employee well-being perk.  Although despite looking good I was always broke!

It was during my time studying solution-focused psychotherapy and hypnotherapy while working as the Head of HR for British Airways Holidays that I had my 'light bulb' moment. I realised that if employees had access to the kind of knowledge I was gaining about topics such as the neuroscience of stress, anxiety, depression, peak performance and the way that the mind operates we could revolutionise well-being in the workplace.

It struck me as amazing that we were in the 21st century and yet this kind of training was readily available for our employees. It's therefore perhaps not surprising, particularly given the continued rise and mental health problems, that organisations have embraced employee well-being webinars as an effective and affordable solution to employee well-being.

In this post, I'll share with you key strategies to ensure your employee well-being webinars have the greatest impact on your people and return on investment for your organisation.

What are employee wellbeing webinars and why are they important?

Employee well-being webinars are a brilliant approach to providing employees with the information they need to take charge of their well-being. The topic of employee well-being spans many areas which I've broken down into these categories for ease.

• Mental health topics include stress management; burnout; anxiety; depression or a holistic introduction to the topic of mental health.
• Emotional well-being topics include understanding what emotions are; how to prevent emotional hijacking; how to regulate your emotions and how to regulate the autonomic nervous system.
• Physical well-being could include nutrition; exercise; menopause; men's health topics and muscular-skeletal health.
• High performance and personal development topics can include time management; how to create healthy working habits; impostor syndrome; mindset; how to switch off and compartmentalise; motivation and many more
• Financial well-being including financial planning; investment strategies; budgeting; changing your relationship with money or retirement planning
• Other employee well-being topics that also benefit organisations could include neuro divergence training or inclusion and belonging training.

There is no limit to the range of topics that you can choose when it comes to employee well-being. The key is prioritising topics that will be of the greatest value to your workforce and provide you with a return on investment, which I'll come onto later.

Why Choose Employee Wellbeing Webinars?

Several of the great advantages of employee well-being webinars are;

• They are easy to schedule versus face-to-face training - You simply need to an online link 
• People can attend globally across different time zones
• Save money on face-to-face training costs
• Wellbeing webinars tend to run for 60 to 90 minutes making them easy for people to schedule in the diary.

Interestingly despite a culture of time shortage, we've observed a greater demand for our well-being webinars to run for longer. As a result the majority of our well-being webinars now run for 90 minutes. This allows us to go more in-depth with the topic and spend more time on interactive exercises such as laser coaching, emotional freedom technique/ EFT tapping, breathwork, dynamic visualisation or any of the other sensory and visceral experiences that we provide employees with.

The Benefit of Employee Wellbeing Webinars

If you work in the field of Human Resources you'll no doubt have witnessed a shift in what potential candidates are looking for from an organisation. The needs and desires of people extend beyond traditional offers of a job, salary, company pension scheme and private medical cover for selected roles.

Instead, potential candidates want to understand more about the culture of an organisation, their values and how invested organisations are in the health and well-being of their workforce. Organisations are learning that in the 'war for talent,' they need to provide a diverse and holistic approach to attracting talent that stretches far beyond what they have offered in the past.

A great example of this is ISN software, based in Dallas, Texas. ISN invested in our Employee Wellbeing Platformlatform a host of employee wellbeing programmes and invited us to speak at their company conferences.

Bill Bush, HR and Recruiting Senior Team Lead shared feedback that these well-being initiatives proved a significant benefit when running recruitment drives. The ISN HR and Recruitment team were able to talk about The Employee Wellbeing Portal, along with well-being webinars providing a more desirable and enticing offer to potential candidates.

Implementing successful employee well-being webinars

While employee well-being webinars are a fantastic approach to providing your people with a foundation of knowledge that enables them to take charge of their overall well-being I recommend the following steps to ensure that your well-being webinars have the greatest impact on both your workforce and your organisation.

1.  What do your people need?

Before investing in well-being webinars I invite you to look at what your people need most at this time given the variety of topics that you can include. It's important to prioritise the needs of the workforce especially where there are budgetary constraints.

• Start by reviewing your HR data. What is your HR data showing you about where people are struggling? For example, has there been a rise in the cases of burnout?
• Speak to your HR business partners and find out what trends or themes they are aware of that people are struggling with.
• Look at the demographics of your workforce. For example, if there's a percentage of people who are coming up for retirement then you may want to look at a webinar that covers the topic of financial well-being.
• Consider running a survey or looking at your most recent employee engagement survey to identify what people want and need.
• What are your strategic goals? To ensure that your approach is strategic review your HR strategy. What are your strategic goals and objectives for the next 12 months.  If you have an employee well-being strategy what employee webinars will feed into you achieving your goals within your strategy?

2.  How will you measure the return on investment?

While it's great to get employee feedback on the webinars, to be strategic consider some simple metrics that will allow you to review your return on investment. The more that you measure the impact the employee well-being webinars have on the workplace the greater the business case you have to put forward to invest in these in the future.

3.  Marketing

A big factor in getting bums on seats is marketing!  While the topic of mental health is crucial, the title around some wellbeing webinars or wellness programmes is not exactly sexy or inviting! Work with your marketing team to develop engaging content to market the webinars that will entice people into attending.  Time is always going to be a factor for people, so you need to market the value of attending.  If you work with us, we'll prepare the marketing for you.

4.  Consistency

Last but not least consistency! Consistency is the key. While it's brilliant to deliver employee well-being webinars consider how many lessons you need to learn to drive. And when you passed your test how many more hours did you need to spend behind the wheel of a car to become a competent and confident driver? Learning is a process it's not a one-off and consistency is key when it comes to creating long-term learning that leads to change.

Case Studies of Successful Employee Wellbeing Webinars

The Department of Corrections (DOC) in Wisconsin reached out to us to invest in an employee wellbeing program. This was the first programme of its kind and after an initial conversation, the organisation decided to invest in 12 monthly webinars.

During the meeting we discussed the immediate challenges within the workforce and identified key topics to cover which included The Neuroscience of Stress; Why Anxiety is Not the Enemy; How to Switch off and Compartmentalise; How to Prevent Burnout and How to Prevent Emotional Hijacking.

The feedback from each webinar has been incredible and led to The DOC investing in a further 12 webinars the following year.

The success of these webinars has been based on our science-driven approach combined with employee interaction which has included live laser coaching; EFT Tapping; Breathwork, Grounding Techniques and Dynamic Visualisation all of which employees have loved!

Employees have reported significant breakthroughs as a result of attending the employee wellbeing webinars each month. This is a snapshot of feedback given from the webinar on How to Avoid Emotional Hijacking…

🌟 Seemed to go by fast. Lots of useful information. Ms. Maude is awesome!!! 🌟 I want more information on tapping! 🌟 The presenter was great. A wonderful understanding of the topic and very soothing approach. 🌟 Sara Maude is amazing and this training is so important for self and professional development. 🌟 This was amazing training…could be longer. An hour went really fast. 🌟 Wonderful speaker. Enjoyed very much and will be putting her suggestions to use. Would like more information on the tapping process. 🌟Very relevant for staff to learn this skill to enhance not only professional development, but emotional intelligence and well being as a whole, to utilize in our every day lives. 🌟 Wonderful topic. Very helpful! 🌟 I would appreciate a more advanced training in this area. 🌟 Sara Maude was very knowledgeable about the subject, she put the presentation in terms that I could relate and identify with. The subject matter was very interesting. 🌟 great to have session at end to show techniques that are helpful 🌟Tied in with the basics of emotional regulation. 🌟 Thank you and please continue to present these types of trainings. 🌟 It was excellent. 🌟 Ms.Maude is AWESOME!!!! 🌟 Very knowledgeable and provided a practical application of the material. 🌟 Sara has been a great leader of discussion and information for the past two classes I have had with her. My favorite viewpoint she recognizes and mentions is that it is okay to be human and feel emotion but not to let it consume you. 🌟 Sara was amazing to listen to. She gave great examples and explained things in an easy to understand manner. 🌟 She was very knowledgeable on this topic and spoke eloquently, which made her engaging and easy to follow. 🌟 The fact that she was from another country and was still able to present in a style and manner that Americans could relate to. 🌟 Key in maintaining one’s overall health and sanity. 🌟 This information should be shared with all as it actualizes emotions and explains how harmful we can be to ourselves when we let outside factors overpower our own well being. I have been using the information I learned in the last class and I am excited for the next class on anxiety! 🌟 It was an excellent training.

Employees at the DOC have continued to attend our regular webinars and many have shared the breakthroughs they have experienced in their mental health as a result.

Conclusion

To wrap it up, employee wellbeing webinars play a crucial role in promoting mental health and employee wellbeing and performance. By addressing the needs of employees and providing relevant content, employers can create a positive impact on their workforce. You only have to look at the testimonies we receive, like those above, to see the impact they can have on your people!

Looking ahead, employee wellbeing webinars need to evolve to meet the future needs of employees in a rapidly changing work environment. If you are interested in implementing employee wellbeing programme in your organisation or want further guidance, feel free to get in touch with us. Our team is here to support you in creating a thriving and healthy work culture.