BUD Leaders co-designed a project to improve wellbeing in the workplace, with employees and employers of West Norwood and Tulse Hill. The project was a collaboration with Urban Health, Design Council and Station to Station Business Improvement District.
The project was a response to the Coronavirus pandemic’s impact on small businesses’ revenue, which created stress for business owners, impacting their health. Since SMEs do not have access to health and wellbeing services like big companies do, there was a knock-on effect for employees as well.
Our impact
We delivered a CPD accredited 3-month leadership course and multiple follow-up workshops. This supported participants to learn new ways to improve as a leader and a manager, to improve their communication skills and to learn new approaches to work-life balance and wellbeing. They also met and connected with other business owners and employees in the neighbourhood.
Evaluation of the leadership 3-month training programme, which was one of the support offers of the project, found that 100% of participants surveyed felt more connected to other business owners in their neighbourhood and that they had shared best practice.
92% felt more confident and equipped as a leader of their organisation. 83% felt they had learnt new approaches to work-life balance to improve their wellbeing and the wellbeing of their team. 83% also felt they had increased their equity, diversity and inclusion awareness.
The Happier Healthier Workplaces project created opportunities for local businesses to make sustainable connections, collaborate and offer wellbeing services to each other. It also improved Station to Station’s understanding of what contributes to the wellbeing of workers in local small and medium businesses.
The project provided opportunities to the Business Improvement District to test different outreach methods and offers with its businesses, and supported the BID’s marketing strategy, outreach and business support improvements.
The project has formed a case study for the Design Council on the impact of its Employee Health Innovation Fund. An insights report is available here. This outlines how the project formed a team of partnerships to deliver a responsive programme, chose a people-led approach and created a tailored wellbeing model.
What it’s like to work with BUD Leaders
“[BUD Leader’s ROC leadership training programme] made me more reflective, made me more considerate of the wellbeing of those around me. Definitely made me want to be more inclusive of employee ideas and contributions.” Andrew Preston, Chief Executive, Lambeth Elfrida Rathbone Society.
“This was extraordinarily powerful thing to do, and I know what I have learned will help me be a more resilient, less stressed manager.” Course participant.
“My time was well spent taking part in this course, this is just the beginning, there is so much more to learn and achieve ahead of me. It was an eye opener to my own ways of working and to see what it could be like. Thank you.” Course participant.
“We explored many different aspects of leadership and how these apply in different business situations. Key to this was active learning and putting in our own time and effort in to make connections to our own work fields. The buddy system was great to do this in parallel and keep each other motivated. The course leaders created a great supportive, safe and nurturing space for us all.” Course participant.
