Thriving at work
Workplace wellbeing is one of our core areas of expertise and we offer a range of wellbeing training solutions.
Each of these covers an essential part of the wellbeing puzzle, for employees at each level of the organisational hierarchy. We help employees understand the factors that boost wellbeing and how to cultivate them. We explain the role of coping with demands and stress, and the need to be proactive about self-care. We share the evidence and insights that support real behaviour change.
All of which supports a sustainable and high-performance approach to work.
What is workplace wellbeing training?
Workplace wellbeing training includes all the courses we offer designed to boost and maintain employees’ wellbeing, inside and outside of work.
These courses combine the science of psychology, compelling delivery and practical tools to equip participants with the insights and techniques they can bring to life in their everyday routines. We share the evidence and methods that enable employees to make real and valued change, cope better with challenges, and make intentional investments in their wellbeing with the longer term in mind.
How can training improve employee wellbeing?
Good quality training contributes to employee wellbeing by:
- Avoiding myths, misconceptions, fashions and fads - there are far to many of them in the wellbeing space!
- Normalising common experiences, like how we respond to stress, so participants don't feel alone or isolated.
- Explaining natural psychological and physiological responses in accessible ways, so they understand what they're experiencing and why.
- Sign-posting effective ways of boosting and maintaining wellbeing through the cultivation of simple habits, to avoid disruptive personal reinvention.
- Emphasising the concept of sustainability, which prioritises a focus on habits over the long term, rather than quick fixes and short-term solutions.
What makes workplace wellbeing training effective?
Our wellbeing training ethos is primarily one of prevention: we want to give employees the information, frameworks and skills that will help them minimise job-related stress, unhealthy coping strategies, burnout and the need for more significant professional psychological help.
As with all training, it’s just not enough to present people with information and hope they put it to good use! We help training participants understand their own rationale for learning and implementing changes.
We explain the root causes and impacts of experiences like stress, overwhelm, burnout, but also the factors that sit within their control like self-care, coping strategies and sleep. We encourage our participants to create their own recipe for sustainable wellbeing and then apply it over time in manageable chunks in the form of health-promoting habits.
We help them plan for practical implementation and ensure they leave the session with additional tools for their wellbeing toolkit.
Our training courses
Workplace wellbeing is one of our core areas of focus and we offer a range of wellbeing training solutions. Each of which covers an essential part of the wellbeing puzzle, for employees at each level of the organisational hierarchy.
Our courses are organised into three themes:
- Developing Psychological Flexibility
- Developing sustainable approaches to work
- Bite-sized ‘Essentials’ workshops
Psychological Flexibility
Psychological Flexibility is a set of thinking and behavioural skills that supports holistic wellbeing, resilience and goal-attainment in the workplace. By practicing these skills, we become more self-aware and mindful of our approach, we learn to use values rather than emotions to guide our behaviour, and we learn how to persist in the pursuit of meaningful goals. The scientific evidence supporting psychological flexibility is extremely powerful and the approach has been used in a wide range of organisational settings to boost employee health and satisfaction at work. Principles-led, it can be developed in a variety of ways, which is reflected in our courses. Click here to learn more about the concept.
First steps in psychological flexibility
This is an introductory two-hour session to give delegates an overview of the skill set and guidance on how to cultivate the key habits that support it. ‘First steps…’ is the perfect introduction to this impactful skillset, well-suited to all-hands webinars, or intimate face-to-face training sessions.
Delegates will leave with the tools to start their psychological flexibility journey. This is followed up with a live online Q&A session once delegates have had an opportunity to practice their new skills
Show up! Let go! Get moving!
This half-day course goes into more detail about psychological flexibility and its constituent skills. We explore how to show up in the present moment, let go of struggles with thoughts and emotions, and get moving in the direction of what really matters in life – our values.
We then schedule a live online Q&A session, where delegates can discuss what it’s been like to bring the skills to life, get answers to their questions and plan for continued application of their new psychological flexibility toolkit.
Me at my best
Our flagship Psychological Flexibility course can be run as either a one-day face to face workshop with an online follow-up, or as a series of four online training sessions, scheduled to meet your needs.
We’ll explore how our innate psychological inflexibility shows up and contributes to making life more difficult. Each subsequent session covers two of the key skills of Psychological Flexibility and their implementation, covering: Mindful focus, healthy distance from internal struggle, and the application of values in intentional ways.
Working sustainably
Working sustainably is all about acquiring the skills to better respond to the challenges we encounter, while also developing a resilient mindset and helpful, healthy coping habits. We challenge delegates to explore how they respond to setbacks and pressure and explain how changes to their mindset and habits will assist them in persisting in a healthy and sustainable way.
‘A mind like water’ – Dealing effectively with pressure and stress
This workshop demystifies job-related stress and explores the mind-body interface, so that delegates understand where their experience of stress comes from. We share a combination of thinking and behavioural skills to help delegate re-appraise pressure and respond to it in a more sustainable and effective way.
Delegates will learn how to deal more effectively with the things they can’t control and and how use healthy and sustainable coping strategies in the face of pressure.
‘Fit for the future’ – Developing a resilient outlook
This day-long workshop focuses on identifying appropriate thinking and behavioural responses to challenges and setbacks, and building an effective strategy for boosting resilience. We cover the building blocks of resilience, how to overcome setbacks and how to persist in the face of challenges.
This workshop can be augmented with the completion of a Resilience questionnaire (the RQi) and individual feedback, to provide a truly tailored and individual insight into their resilience journey.
Wellbeing essentials
These 90 minute workshops represent an interactive and impactful way to introduce key wellbeing concepts to your employees. Designed to fit in with ‘learn at lunch’ or offsite gatherings, the sessions are designed to capture delegates’ attention and cover skills they can put into use immediately.
When operational arrangements mean day-long workshops aren’t practical, our Wellbeing Essentials sessions are a fantastic alternative. And for geographically-distributed teams, all of our Essentials sessions can be delivered remotely via webinar. Just get in touch to find out more.
Our Wellbeing Essentials workshops can also be run in combination as an ongoing wellbeing programme across several months. This ensures that a number of relevant and impactful topics are covered, with time in between to reflect, experiment and embed new habits.
Fresh starts in wellbeing
The perfect place to start! We explore what ‘wellbeing’ actually means, how previous attempts to make changes related to wellbeing haven’t always worked and how to take advantage of the psychology of the fresh start.
We also look at how to cultivate new, healthy habits to kickstart meaningful personal change.
Self-care essentials
Self-care isn’t all bubble baths and wine. It’s anything we intentionally do to positively contribute to our wellbeing. Including the things that aren’t so fun!
This session outlines some key quality markers for self-care activities, explores common pitfalls to avoid and explains how to cultivate new, healthy self-care routines. All with ‘future you’ in mind.
Coping with pressure and stress
Sources of stress are almost a given in the workplace. And while organisations need to focus on minimising sources of stress, it’s how we deal with the remaining stressors that matters. That said, not every coping strategy is equally healthy or sustainable. In this workshop, we look at some of the common difficulties we face, the importance of perceptions of control and the need to have a well-stocked ‘coping toolkit’.
Sleep and wellbeing
Sleep represents the very bedrock of our wellbeing yet it’s also something we take for granted – and even intentionally deprive ourselves of! It’s fair to say that not investing in our sleep will undermine all our other attempts to be healthy. In this session, we bust common myths about sleep, explain how it contributes to our wellbeing and how sleep disturbance gets in the way of everything. We’ll share some simple but impactful tips for improving the quality and duration of your sleep.
Thinking about your thinking
Our minds are incredible thinking machines, but the ‘stuff’ they produce can often lead to unwelcome feelings and unhelpful behaviours. We can get caught up with worries, memories, assumptions and judgements, all to the detriment of the priorities right in front of us. This session teaches attendees key ‘defusion‘ skills, so they can see their thoughts for what they are – not what they say they are.
Compassion and wellbeing
While it may not be a word we frequently hear at work, research has demonstrated the powerful impact of self-compassion and compassion for others when it comes to our wellbeing.
In this session, we demystify what compassion actually is and explore some simple ways to develop a compassion habit.
Connect and thrive
Connection with others at work is core to being human. When we don’t have enough, we experience loneliness and all its toxic health outcomes.
This session explains the role of connection and allows delegates to better understand their own needs, while also learning simple, practical steps to improving their relationships with those around them.
Healthy at home
With so many people working from home, either on a permanent or occasional basis, it’s important to remember how this new context can impact our wellbeing.
This workshop explains what to pay attention to when maintaining your psychological, physical and social wellbeing while working away from the office. From the importance of your workstation set-up, the benefits of proactive communication, and why managing boundaries with intent is key to avoiding burnout.
Mindfulness essentials
A mindful focus on the here and now is one of the core skills of Psychological Flexibility. Yet our workplaces are littered with distractions and we’re actively encouraged to multi-task, which leads to anxiety and overwhelm. This session represents an interactive and accessible introduction to developing mindful focus and attention management, to give delegates the ability to better notice when their attention wanders and how to direct it where it’s most helpful.
Resilience essentials
Frequently misunderstood, resilience is simply a collection of skills that help us deal with life’s challenges. There’s no one, perfect way to be resilient, so context is very important.
That said, we know how our thinking, our emotions and our behaviour can either support or undermine our resilience, so this session serves as the perfect introduction to making resilience-enhancing changes.
Healthy use of technology
In our 21st century lives, technology is pervasive – at work and at home. While our devices can doubtless make life easier, they can also get in the way of us being the kind of person we’d like to be.
Whether it’s mindless scrolling on social media or the inability to step away from the email inbox at night, this session explores how to cultivate a healthier relationship with our technology, without abandoning it completely!
Discussing wellbeing and stress
There are any number of topics that we can find uncomfortable to discuss, but our wellbeing and that of our colleagues needn’t be one.
In this session, we explore how to raise the topic, how to respond effectively when someone else raises it, and some of the ways we can have an effective, compassionate and quality conversation as a result.
Get in touch with us today to find out more
We'd be delighted to discuss your workplace wellbeing training needs and explain how we can boost wellbeing in your organisation. Get in touch today to find out more.