120 | Workplace Well-being: A Blueprint for Transformation | Brian Crooke

Welcome to the Building Better Cultures podcast, where I talk to leaders about how internal communications, engagement, and leadership all play a key role in creating amazing and successful cultures.

Whatever the organization's vision is, can you draft or can you derive a wellbeing vision from that? You know, by driving towards this wellbeing vision now, these wellbeing events, this program, these initiatives where we're running, it's actually supporting the organization's vision. So it's driving us closer to our bottom line. I mean, that is a way of getting leadership bought in.

Hello there and welcome to another episode of the Building Better Cultures podcast with me, Scott McInnes. Not just me, Scott McInnes today, me and Sinead Egan, my colleague from Inspiring Change. So today you get to hear from both of us. Sinead, hello there.

Hi, Scott, how are you?

I'm good, thanks. I'm good. So I'm looking forward to this. We're going to be chatting to Brian Crook, more on him in a second, but just my usual couple of little housekeeping bits first. Firstly, thank you to Workvivo, who have been our friend and podcast sponsor for very many episodes. If you are struggling with connecting your people, and I think this is particularly the case during hybrid, getting messages out there, making people feel connected both to the organization and each other, then well worth a look at their platform. You can pop along to workvivo.com, or there'll be a little advert coming up in a while, and you can hear more about them. My second little ask, as usual, is please, if you are listening on Apple Podcasts, a little 5-star rating and a comment really helps just to get the podcast out there. So, I'd really, really appreciate you taking 2 ticks just to do that. Thanks very much. Anyway, onto today's guest. That's all the housekeeping out the way. So, we are talking today about workplace wellbeing and the links into culture. And I'm really pleased to have Brian Crooke with us today, who's the founder of Workplace Wellbeing Ireland and also the course director of the postgrad certificate in workplace wellness in Trinity College, which Sinead had the pleasure of attending. Earlier, I think it was this year, right, Sinead?

Yeah, it was earlier this year. We actually started in September and ran through to April.

Brilliant, brilliant. Well, there we are. Brian, hello there.

Hi, Scott. Hi, Sinead. Thanks so much for the invitation.

Great stuff. Well, listen, I'm looking forward to this because I think there's a growing link between workplace wellbeing and culture, and probably a bit of a growing misunderstanding of what workplace wellbeing actually is. We'll get into that in two ticks. But first of all, why don't we kick off like we always do with you just maybe giving us a minute or so on you, where you've come from, and what you do today?

Sure, yeah, thanks, Scott. You gave the main introduction, I suppose. I lead a community called Workplace Wellbeing Ireland. I'm the course director of the postgrad in workplace wellness at Trinity. But I certainly didn't always do that. My undergrad is in IT, actually. So I'm a recovering management consultant, as I like to say. I worked in that space for about 10 years., uh, with IBM. Great experience. I was working on many different client sites, many different workplaces, if you like. And it was a passion of mine for quite a lot of those years was physical health, physical well-being. So I had qualified at nighttime, taking lots of courses in personal training, gym instructor, sports nutrition. That was where my passion lay, and I was trying to marry that with, with the workplace, with the, with my fellow kind of colleagues there, and bringing stuff in. And in terms of, I think it started with the Fiverside football team, walking groups, lunchtime running groups, but also then lunch and learns, bringing— I kicked them off myself, but then I'm trying to get colleagues involved as well and kind of sharing and learning. But I mean, I quickly realized that there was, it was a lot more to this workplace wellbeing stuff than just some physical health. I mean, for starters, my colleagues mostly couldn't attend what I was organizing. They were up against deadlines. This wasn't seen as part of their job. This was just a very nice extra. So started educating myself a little bit more, joined an organization called Wellcoa, Wellness Council of America, who seemed to be doing— they've been doing this for 30 years, more about long-term strategic wellbeing programming. So I did all their online certifications. And I said, well, look, no one's doing this really in Ireland. Why don't I try and bring this approach to Ireland? And rather than when I took voluntary redundancy from the corporate world, rather than jumping straight in and being a management consultant to a workplace wellbeing consultant, which I didn't feel like I was qualified for at all, I just set up a community and I brought people together and facilitated events. And 100 people came to that very first one, our Workplace Wellbeing Ireland meetup in September 2018. Couple of speakers, the whole idea being though people would share some experiences of what they've tried in their workplace. Did it work? Did it not? Lessons learned to hopefully improve everyone or bring everyone along with us so we could all kind of share and learn from each other. Started from there, over 4,000 members in that community now. We continue with the events. It's been the single best sandbox, I suppose, for me, or learning space for me. I've learned so much from that. I've gone on to be privileged to lead the postgrad in workplace wellness also. So, so much has just come from that idea of bringing people together and community first, as opposed to jumping in and thinking I had all the answers straight away. So that's kind of where it all started.

Brilliant. And I think it's really interesting that you use that kind of term, wellbeing stuff.? Because I think that probably there's still, even though we've had COVID-19 and wellness is getting a lot more kind of airtime and attention since then, I still think there's a huge amount of misunderstanding of what workplace wellbeing actually is. So why don't you start by just maybe clearing that up for us? What's your perspective on that? What is workplace wellbeing?

So workplace wellbeing, or as you'll hear me say, workplace health promotion, is it's any health promoting, any workplace health promoting activity or organisational policy that supports healthy behaviours and over a sustained period, then healthy outcomes. So health behaviours and health outcomes. And that could be anything from some of our one-off initiatives, training courses, healthy food options in the canteen, right the way up to organizational policies, flexible working policy, annual leave policy, right to disconnect, et cetera, and everything in between. So any health-promoting activity or policy.

So not just about exercise, because I think that's where people go to, right?

No, certainly not. Certainly not. What's quite interesting in how the landscape has changed in the last 10 years is when I first started this and talking about workplace wellbeing, almost everybody did think I was talking about some kind of physical activity class or session. It didn't really help, I suppose, that I was actually a personal trainer and that was maybe a foot in the door for me in one way. But that was the case across the board, I think, for a lot of people and organizations. Within the last 5 years, when I've said workplace wellbeing, a lot of people default to thinking it's only mental health, only mental health, mental wellbeing in the workplace. A really important area, certainly, but again, not everything. But interesting to see how the conversation has changed in that regard. And most most recently, I would say, as a result, during and since the pandemic, people now see social wellbeing, social connection then as well. And interestingly, I mean, I use this as a little bit of a framework. The WHO back in 1948 came out with their three pillars of wellbeing: physical, mental, social wellbeing. But I think it's only really in the last couple of years that we're actually giving those three areas the focus that I think they thought they would they would get maybe even back in 1948.

Yeah, I completely agree, Brian. Most companies don't take that holistic view and think about those different facets of wellbeing. Why should organizations invest in this? What would the benefits be for the company and for the employees?

Yeah, I suppose I start with why. Why is this important to you and your organization? There's lots— we can look at lots of external reasons why this is important, but why is it important to you and your organization? I would always try and align what an organization is doing from a wellbeing perspective with their organization's vision and business objectives. So if you can align that, that'll give you a clearer picture as to why you're doing this. So a main driver might be around talent attraction and retention. I mean, that's a key driver for a lot of organizations at the moment. So that's gonna drive a lot of what you're doing. From a wellbeing perspective. But think about it then, if you wanna bring people with you, I'm now aligned, what we're doing from a wellbeing perspective is bringing us closer to the business objectives here. So there's one way to why it's important to us as an organization. And then the benefits there, maybe we're taking benchmarks or baselines of where we are from a talent attraction retention position at the outset. And then a year's time, 2 years' time, 3 years' time, we can see what progress, if any, we've made against these benchmarks in that regard.

Yeah, great.

Thanks, Bryan. And I think, you know, for me, having that alignment piece at the very top of the organization is critical for that top table. But I think as you work down the organization, you start to see that kind of organizations do offer some form of wellbeing programs, whether that's yoga classes, whether that's employee assistance programs, whether that's mental health initiatives you touched on there, which has obviously really, really grown in recent years. What else can they be doing? Is that enough? But what else practically should organizations be doing around this whole area of wellness?

Is it enough? I suppose the short answer is no. Where I come from, where we come from in the postgrad, is it's not about a program. It's not about a series of initiatives with a start and a stop. It's about a culture of health and growing and building a culture of health where the healthy option is just the easy option, is just the option that people choose over time. And that the norm in the organization. So that starts with leadership, with behaviors, with actions on a daily basis. So it's a culture of health is what we're aiming for. That's a long-term plan. And as I said, it's behaviors over a period of time. And then the programs, the initiatives, they're built on top of that. So people are a lot more likely to engage with a program or an initiative if you're building it on that foundation of a culture of health. But if you have a workplace where attending a wellbeing session or signing up to a wellbeing event isn't the norm, isn't being practiced and supported and advocated by senior leadership, let's say, or your line manager, you're a lot less likely to engage. In fact, you feel like you don't have permission to attend. So it's the culture of health first, and then the programs and the initiatives come after that.

Yeah, really interesting. And I suppose you've touched there on senior leadership and their critical role. Scott McInnes and myself spend most of our time helping companies to enact culture change. And we know that when you don't get the buy-in and ownership at that top level, you're actually not going to make the progress that you want to make. What can you do to get buy-in for wellbeing and that culture of health from the top team in the organization?

Yeah, yeah, I mean, that's the question. We spend almost the whole module, as you'll know well, Sinead, on the postgrad almost talking about this. So it's certainly not a quick fix or there's no kind of silver bullet. Although I have to say, I do like Adam Grant's approach when he's asked this question. I don't know if you've come across it. He's asked, how do you bring leadership with you? How do you get their buy-in and support? And he's just got one line. It's hard data and human stories. So now there's an awful lot more to it than that, of course. But in a nutshell, I think it's maybe when you're feeling overwhelmed, I think it can help with that. Hard data. Am I tracking the information here internally? What's going on externally? Do I know what my people— where my people's needs or wants are? And then am I backing that up then with some human stories? Is that in the leadership team? Is there an interesting story in the leadership team we could capture someone's attention with? Or is there a champion on the leadership team who could lead this out for us? Or what about the wider population then as well? So hard data plus human stories, but remembering that it's a process over time. It's about awareness. Understanding that'll lead to maybe commitment, and then the alignment comes after that. But yeah, hard data and human stories.

Yeah, I think you're right. It isn't going to happen overnight, and you might have to take people over months on this journey. But that idea of having the business case and then those more emotive examples and stories from people in the organization, I think that works well. And I think for senior leaders who aren't always seeing the challenges that people have at other levels, it's really important that they hear those stories from their colleagues to help understand the risks that might be there and what people face day to day as well.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And if you can, to one of my earlier points, if you can align what you're doing from a wellbeing perspective, so whatever the organization's vision is, can you draft or can you derive a wellbeing vision from that? So that, again, a way to bring leadership with us is, look, by driving towards this wellbeing vision now with these wellbeing events, this program, these initiatives where we're running, it's actually supporting the organization's vision. So it's driving us closer to our bottom line. I mean, that is a way of getting leadership bought in. It's also a way of bringing the wider population with you as well. We're all in this together. We're working towards this, this wellbeing vision, which is driving us towards the organization's vision.

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Storytelling is something that's at the core of, of the work that we do in helping organizations tell their story in a way that's a bit more human and a bit more engaging. But I think what's really interesting, a couple of things that I picked up on there about leaders telling stories. And I think we're seeing and hearing more and more leaders saying, you know, I had a bit of a breakdown a few years ago. And they're the types of stories that maybe in previous years we wouldn't really have heard because I don't think leaders were necessarily that open about things like that, or maybe even thought that people were that interested in hearing about, you know, their breakdown or issues they've had, you know, in their life that caused them them to go down whatever path they went down. From a leadership perspective, and it comes back to permission, which is something else that you spoke about as well within the organization, what have you seen from a leadership perspective that really can help leaders to be comfortable telling those stories, to have that vulnerability and that openness that we often talk about in great leadership?

Well, to that point, I'm sure you came across Harry Goddard's very recent article of Harry Goddard, CEO of Deloitte in Ireland. And not quite, you know, the vulnerability or talking about his mental health, but talking about or celebrating the fact that he took 2 months of holidays this year, July and August, didn't check a single email, got 1 or 2 texts, but was able to very quickly say, find somebody else to follow up with. So, and celebrating that fact. So celebrating the fact that he, and he even spoke about in the article how he hadn't really, he'd never done this before. In, was it 20 years or 25 years? It just wasn't the done thing to talk about this. You know, it was money doesn't sleep. It's all about the harder you work, that's, that's your badge of honor. Whereas here we go, CEO of a major organization in Ireland talking about how, how he took 2 months off, didn't think about work, spent time with the family, and equally talking about the fact how he's re-energized now and he can't wait to get stuck in and get back into work. And he's, you know, he's really found that purpose again. So it's that kind of idea, celebrating that, so being comfortable or seeing your CEO talk about that, there's the permission piece. If I'm an employee now in Deloitte Ireland, I don't even need to ask now. I know that if I'm taking some annual leave or if I'm taking a bit of time off for whatever reason, the permission is there. It's the CEO has led the way. And I know that's only one article, but it's that kind of behavior over a period of time, this regular kind of updates from the CEO, from line managers talking about this, celebrating the time off piece, celebrating the family piece, and how they're just even re-energized now coming back into the workplace. There's the permission piece. There's where it happens. There's where the foundational culture points are laid. It's that. The vulnerability piece is a bit of a different one. Then again, I would say it's not easy to be vulnerable and not everyone is comfortable being vulnerable either. I would always, I work with an organization called Sea Change, Ireland's national stigma reduction partnership, and they have excellent advice in the area of safeguarding supports. But I do see some leaders, uh, you know, there's an all-hands or whatever, and they're, they're being up there and they're being vulnerable for just, just for the sake of being vulnerable. I don't think they've really thought it through, uh, how this will go down, their own kind of support after that. And it might not even be leaders, it might be just members of the organization. So just a little bit of thought into that kind setup, I think, is really important. And Sea Change have excellent resources on that. I would encourage people to check that out.

Okay, brilliant. And you'd love to know, I think that Deloitte example is brilliant. You'd love to know from that permission perspective, I don't know anything about the ins and outs of Deloitte's culture here in Ireland, but you'd love to know whether it does actually cascade down, whether there is now in the organization leaders saying, 6 weeks off in the summer? Sure, of course, why not? Whatever, Harry's done it, we should all do it. You wonder, is that actually happening? Because then it becomes obviously the flip side of the coin as well. The senior leaders get to do it, but actually for us down here, doesn't happen.

Sure.

And that of course has the adverse effect, which is challenging, right?

Big time. Yeah. And it'll take time. Like, this is— you're talking— this is only in the last— I probably saw this 2 weeks ago. So it'll take time for that to filter through. I mean, again, looking from the outside in, I don't know if this is the practice, if this is kind of standard enough behavior from the leadership. But you're right, you would have to see how that filters through. And if the people on the ground are actually feeling this, then day to day.

It's a positive example though, and it's role modeling behaviors that are healthy. And I suppose when we go and research or diagnose a culture in an organization, we always ask people, what do you have to do to be successful here? So then they're looking at an example of someone who's successful in the sense that they're sitting at the top of that organization, they've made it through every, um, layer, and they're able to do that. So in that picture of success, there's healthy behaviors, um, and that's what they can can see, and that will definitely play into the assumptions people make about what do I have to do if I want to get promoted? What do I have to do if I want to be successful in this organization? So if your example at the top is someone who never takes a break, doesn't use their holidays, people will presume if I want to get promoted, that's also what I need to do. So it's great that he's at least taking the holidays, talking about it, being open, because if you're going for your next promotion in Deloitte, you can still have your holiday, re-energize, and come back to do your job well. So in that sense, I think it's really positive.

Absolutely. And it's important that that cascades down, isn't it, Sinead, that that example is supported throughout the organization?

Yeah, for sure. Let's talk about that scaling piece, because I think it's all well and good if you've got the CEO behind it, that's great. We've got HR behind it, that's great. But actually, if you really want to scale wellbeing initiatives in an organization, you've got to try and get a group behind that to create some momentum. And often, whether it's wellbeing, engagement, management, culture, communications, we turn to champion networks. And I know having had a chat with you before, Brian, that you've some thoughts on champion networks. I have some too. I've seen them work really, really well, and I've seen them work really, really badly. In fact, they don't work really badly, they just don't work. So, from your perspective, how do you set up champion networks for success? Let's try and be really practical for listeners out there. If they're thinking of champion networks, what is it they should be doing to make sure that theirs don't ball on their arses.

Well, I'll start with the, start with why again. Why a Wellbeing Champion Network in an organization? So I think this is really important. And the why we come at it, the reason we come at it, as I say, in the postgrad, and I should say there's an 8-step framework that underpins the postgrad. Step 1 being the importance of committed and aligned leadership. Step 2 being that network of wellbeing champions. And why is a network of wellbeing champions important? We want to create a shared ownership wellbeing across the organization. Because if an employee sees these wellbeing initiatives coming just from HR or just from leadership, here we go, just another HR initiative or leadership initiative designed to whatever, ring some more productivity out of us. Whereas if this is actually shared and if wellbeing is a shared value across the organization and is genuinely owned by the grassroots, let's say this champion network, people in different departments, the voices communicating, two-way communication, involved in the design of the initiatives, the program, well then people can really feel a lot more bought into it and feel like it is actually their program. So yeah, so then like how can we set them up for success and continued success? And that is, that is a real challenge because I do have a, I run a 2-day welding champion program. It does really well, it gets fantastic feedback, it's easily my most popular program. I see, honestly though, I see some of those organizations, they as you said, they will— those networks continue to grow and to thrive, whereas some simply don't and kind of just peter out. The initial momentum is lost early on. So I am engaged in a bit of, a bit of work at the moment to try and, well, capture what, why, what makes these— some thrive and some fail. And I think a couple of the key learnings that I've discovered already is, well, one is That why is really important, that it's a diverse group of people that are involved and you're getting the right people involved. I think some form of incentive is important, and that might be, and I'm not saying financially necessarily, I think it could be, I think a huge area of potential is around, let's say, personal development goals in organizations. Are you being rewarded for giving up, is it 10% of your time or whatever that might be, for being involved in this network. So that can be rewarding. Again, and that's where it's all aligned to the vision, organization vision, wellbeing vision. And all of a sudden now it's reflected in your annual objectives. What else? I think structure on those teams is really important. I do training with 12, 15, up to 20 champions, let's say. If that's a flat team, you're responsible for everything and nothing really, all at the same time. So can you break that out? Maybe you're breaking that out how your organization is divided, practical way in terms of communications, finance, events, et cetera. Or maybe you're breaking that out in terms of your pillars, physical, mental, social, financial, 3 or 4 people responsible for each area. They feel again, a little bit more ownership for each of those areas. They're updating regularly then on those. They've got more of a, responsibility for those areas, that can help as well. And then maybe just aligning with any other organizational best practice that's involved there, I think. But there's a pretty good start in terms of how you might make that, I guess, more successful. But the ongoing facilitated CPD is what is an area I'm interested in. Mental Health First Aid, again, is another excellent example of a 2-day program that is really, really good, brilliant awareness awareness training for organizations, some of those networks go on to thrive and some don't. So where is the ongoing facilitated CPD that can really support these people to not just— because that's only the beginning of their journey after those 2 days. How can we continue to support them to grow and to learn into that role?

Yeah, I love that. I mean, for me, having it in somebody's objectives that it's agreed with their line manager, you're now doing this half a day a week. That is golden because that gives them then the okay, the permission to go off and do that without thinking, well, it's costing me, you know, my actual job, so I have to do it off the side of my desk. And I love that point about prioritization because you're right, when everyone does everything, nobody does anything because everyone's doing everything. So I think that whole idea of aligning people around those pillars is really, really brilliant to give them a focus. And then we come back together, great, let's take the 3 or 4 pillars and come up with a plan.

Yeah, yeah.

And I think equally that part about people have to be incentivized in some way, or there has to be something that they're getting out of it, either the progress, the recognition, the personal development, because they're essentially change agents. And trying to enact that change in the organization is difficult. And we, we all know that because we do this as well in our roles. Um, but when you get to that stage of trying to make the change stick, and it's the grind of reinforcing and trying to get people involved and keeping engaging people, it can be very difficult. So there has to be some reward for people and something that they're getting out of it as well.

At Inspiring Change, we help our clients to implement sustainable change and drive business performance by putting their people first. We do that through a focus on strategic internal communications, employee engagement, and leadership consultancy. If you're struggling with change or getting your people aligned behind your purpose, vision, or strategy, then get in touch. Simply visit our website at www.inspiringchange.ie for more. Just picking up on that point, Sinead, about change agents, that if this was a change, if this was an organizational change program, if this was a transformational technology program, you'd bet your bottom dollar that all of those things would probably be in place for champions in those areas. But because this is maybe deemed to be more the kind of the soft HR stuff, it doesn't maybe get the same rigor that's needed or the same support. So yeah, it's really interesting. It's just another change program in the organization. It should get the same level of change support as every other program.

Absolutely. Yeah. And Sinead, you'll remember Dylan from Indeed who came into us last year. He's actually coming into us again this evening in Trinity. I think Indeed are a really good, a really strong example of an organization that has set up very, very strong employee resource groups, if you want, champion networks, another term for that. But indeed, so it actually really does start at the top. They don't even call them ERGs, they call them IRGs, inclusion resource groups, stemming from the fact that inclusion is one of their 5 values. Coming right from the top, there's a senior VP of inclusion that filters down to the EMEA team where they now have quite a few IRGs. And Dylan gave us an example of the IRG where he's a co-chair to the access at indeed.org showed us the structure. You know, this is a really kind of formalized structure that the team has. There's two co-chairs which rotate every two years. There's two very senior leader sponsors as well. Again, they rotate every two years, keeping things fresh. There's the, I think it was based on finance events, commercial, whatever the structure was that he showed us. Social media as well, marketing was another area. And here's another— I thought was an excellent incentive— was that the person leading, let's say, the social media stream for this Access N&D group, she was actually responsible for managing a very, very senior leader in another department who just happened to be on her team. So I mean, the career, the relationship building, the career progression opportunities as well are absolutely fantastic. And Dylan had a great line as well. You'll probably remember, Sinead, he spoke about the fact that he has— was it once a month or once every— once a quarter, I think it was— a call, a one-to-one call with the CEO of Indeed as part of this role, just to update him on how things are progressing with the IRG. And as Dylan said, he's not quite Mark Zuckerberg, but he's not far off it. So the career building opportunities there are really, really impressive.

Yeah, no, that is a great example of the structure. The incentive is there, but also then there's an expectation that people are actually doing things in that champion role, which is something Dylan talked about that I thought was powerful, because I think sometimes where those networks fall down is when people take on the role but they're not actually very committed to doing the work. And so that was another side. But speaking of good examples, We know that you're immersed in this, you're looking at best practice all the time, you're networking with everyone in the country, I think, that's involved in wellbeing. So who is doing really well in this space? So enacting that real culture change rather than just tactical initiatives or programmes?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's hard to look past the transport organisations. I think Irish Rail, Dublin Bus, Bus Éireann, have all really invested in this area. So they all now have at least one dedicated resource, health and wellbeing full-time lead in this area. Irish Rail actually have more than one. They have, they each have these champion networks that we spoke about. So they've invested in the training of these champion networks and they're looking to build and grow them as well. And then they're investigating further. I mean, they're investigating the personal objective side of things. And I love where Irish Rail's, direction, pardon the pun, is they're really interested in following the WHO, the four avenues of influence, which Healthy Ireland very recently adopted as well. So they're very clearly aligning to those four avenues of influence. So that's the physical work environment, the psychosocial work environment, communities, internal and external communities in organizations, and then the personal health resources as well. And I believe they're looking to create, is it a dedicated role role, you know, we'll be responsible for each of those areas. So really aligning with WHO and Healthy Ireland frameworks there. So just in terms of examples, I think it's kind of hard to, to beat what Sharon and Martin and Ciara are doing at each of those organizations.

Yeah, and not easy organizations to do that work in just because of the nature of the work. People are distributed, you're dealing with the workforce who are spread out, maybe doing shift work, not all together, not reading every email. Sitting at their desks and available at the same time. And so definitely some challenges there, and maybe engaging with, with that workforce challenges as well, with cohorts that you'd have in their, in their employee population.

Great, great point, because that's another reason I think why they're leading by example is because they are, they're not just trying to develop something for, you know, one size fits all. They are actually targeting their— is it their driver Is it the engineers? Is it the shift workers who some of them work overnight shifts constantly with hardly seeing another member of the Irish Rail network, let's say, or the bus network? So yeah, how do you engage with these individuals and how do you make them feel even like they're part of the organisation? Because some of them feel quite remote from that. So dedicated programmes for these individuals and really investigating and gathering meaningful data data around that as well and trying to implement that then.

Yeah, brilliant. And actually, it's interesting you touch on Dublin Bus. I stuck a post up on LinkedIn a few months ago. There's a, just up the road here, I'd walked up one morning and there's a terminus for one of the bus routes there, the H2, if anybody goes on it, or possibly the H3. I was getting a coffee and just so happened there was a trainer there with some obviously new bus drivers and kind of slightly grizzled beefy, muscled guy, not somebody that maybe you would expect to be talking. Yes, Sinead, my biases are coming out here massively. I can see you laughing at me. But not somebody that you'd naturally expect to be talking about mental health. But I was kind of half earwigging as I was getting my cup of coffee as he was talking. He was saying, "Some days," I won't offend anybody by trying to do a Dublin accent. But he said, "Some days you just have bad days at work because of colleagues, because of passengers." trainers, don't hold that in. If you're struggling, there's posters on the notice boards in the depot. There's a number on there. You can give them a ring and they'll help. And I thought, God, it's only a tiny little thing. But if everybody across that organization, all of those trainers were doing that, what an amazing start to that journey. Absolutely. I thought it was absolutely brilliant.

Yeah. Again, and there's your permission to do that or to feel this is the type of organization where that is kind of the normal thing to do. To not to bottle it up, to reach out to someone. Is it to call a number? Is it to share something with a trusted colleague? And 10 years ago, he wouldn't have got that. It would've been the opposite. It was kind of, keep quiet and just get on with it.

Suck it up. Suck it up.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Listen, Brian, this has been absolutely brilliant. Loads of nuggets in here, tons and tons of really helpful advice. We're kind of getting to the end of our time now. And what I tend to always ask questions at the end is, What's the one thing, what advice would you give to listeners who are just starting out on this journey? How do they start? Because I think if you start trying to do everything all at once, you tend to fail quite quickly. So what is the starting point? What should people be thinking about doing first?

Yeah, you can complicate this as much as you like. You really can. So just get started. Start with the class, a talk, a workshop. But, you know, do some pre and post, little, very simple Google Forms surveys, pre and post. Did this work? Do you want to do this again? And Google, they'll give you some really interesting data or at least even some graphs that you can get in front of your leadership team or even your line manager. Look, 90% of people who attended this session want to do something like this again. We got to do it again. So just building up over time, slowly, your business case Pre and post surveys, satisfaction, start small and build from there and get online. There's lots of research out there as well. The 8-step framework is online. There's the postgrad in Trinity. There's lots of free— Workplace Welding Ireland, all our events are free. Podcast is free. This podcast is free as well. Lots of resources just to build up your own kind of understanding of what works and what doesn't.. But the key message is just get started, get started with something small and take it from there.

Brilliant.

And it comes back to that point I think you made at the top, Brian, about hard data, about how do you get that hard data on which to base your decisions. So that's brilliant. Before we go, how can people— you touched on the fact that there's loads of resources there. Where can people go to find them? And what's the best way to get in touch with you if people want to do that after they've listened to this?

Sure. Thanks, Scott. Yeah, workwellireland.ie is your best resource. You can join the community. There. I think just click the link. That's effectively a mailing list. I try and keep it— there's a weekly newsletter that goes out with any news updates, events. I try and if there's any open roles as well, I'll share an open role or two each week there for the Workplace Wellbeing Community. So yeah, workwellireland.ie is your best bet.

Great stuff. Great stuff. Well, listen, Brian, absolutely loved the chat. Really, really appreciated you taking the time today. Thanks also to Sinéad. Nice to have somebody riding alongside me for a change and you weren't listening to my voice the whole time. So that's a win as well. So We'll wrap it up there by saying thanks very much and talk again soon.

Thanks, Scott. Thanks, Brian.

Thanks so much.

Thanks for listening. To hear from other leaders on our podcasts, to read our blogs, or to find out more about the work that we do at Inspiring Change, please visit inspiringchange.ie.