Summary: The well being of staff is crucial to the continued success of an organisation. In this month's show,nbsp;we hear fromnbsp;a Director of HR and a Chief Executivenbsp;who share with us the impact that Well Being initiatives are having on their organisations. To listen to the podcast, click the grey arrow below. Carol Mills is Director of Human Resources at Lancashire County Council, who are one of the largest local government employers in the Country. Carol believes that the key to a healthy workforce is to empower employees to do something for themselves and as anbsp;progressive employer,nbsp;the Councilnbsp;recognises that if they don't look after their staff - their staff won't look after their customers. In this interview, Carol talks about some of the Well Being initiativesnbsp;she has introduced. When consideringnbsp;the best approach to Well Being, Carol's advice includes: LOOK AT WHAT IS BEING DONE ELSEWHERE - and learnnbsp;about the things that can go wrong TALK TO YOUR STAFF AND TRADE UNIONS - about the sort of initiatives they feel might benefit them LOOK AT THE PRIVATE SECTOR - they've been at this a lot longer than we have, sonbsp;learn from them PILOT THE NEW IIP WELL BEING STANDARD - and learn from the feedback CHERRY PICK SOME OF THE GOOD THINGS -nbsp;and test these out on a few willing staff to find out what works for your organisation Carolnbsp;is also the PPMA (Public Sector People Managers Association) lead for Well Being and to find out more about her work you can contact hernbsp;through their website www.ppma.org.uk or atnbsp;Lancashire County Council.nbsp;Other sources of information are: CIPD,nbsp;your own healthcare provider, local Employers Organisation andnbsp;local PCT's. In this second interview Geoff Walker, Chief Executive atnbsp;Sandwell CCT talks passionately about Well Being and the enormous benefits the Trust, it's staff and service users have gainednbsp;bynbsp;delivering their services on an individual basis through human relationships, rather than beingnbsp;driven bynbsp;policies and procedures. This approach has clearly paid off as they have been named as 2nd best company to work for in the UK by The Sunday Times Best 100 Companies to Work For Survey for the second year running and they came out top for Well Being. The benefits they have experiencednbsp;include: REDUCED SICKNESS ABSENCEnbsp;-nbsp;from an average of 22 days per year to 0.3 days, achieving a saving of pound;600,000 pa by not doing anything other than making people feel good about themselves and feel good about being at work REDUCED STAFF TURNOVER - currently 4% pa QUALITY OF STAFF - 87% of staff are appropriately qualified according to their regulator CONTINUITY - over 60% of the workforce has been with us for more than 7 years Geoff's key tip is that managers have to create time to be with people and as such he insists that each manager keeps 30% of their diary time non-committed to do that. As a result, in the last Sunday Times survey which 87% of the workforce completed, the Trust camenbsp;1st for both Managers who listen and Mangers who motivate. Clearly emphasising Geoff's philosophy of making people feel good about being at work. Geoff is happy to speak to anyone who would like to find out more about the Trust's work in this area and you can contact him via their website www.sandwellcct.org.uk or call him on 0121nbsp;553nbsp;2722. Listening to the show is simple, you can do it in a number of ways and you donrsquo;t need an iPod or MP3 player. Simply click on the grey arrow underneath the show heading and it will play through your computer. Alternatively, you can easily download the file and listen to it later, ornbsp;transfer it onto an MP3 player,nbsp;just right click on lsquo;Downloadrsquo; and select lsquo;Save Target Ashellip;rsquo; The show can also benbsp;playednbsp;on iTunes. To make sure that you never miss an episode, you can sub...
