Event reviews

Citation

Armond, S. (2012), "Event reviews", Strategic HR Review, Vol. 11 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/shr.2012.37211caa.010

Event reviews

Article Type: Resources From: Strategic HR Review, Volume 11, Issue 3

Business Well-Being Network Annual Conference 2011, London, UK, December 8, 2011

Sophie Armond

The Business Well-Being Network annual conference took place on 8 December at the Inmarsat Conference Centre in London. Over 100 well-being experts and practitioners gathered to discuss the issues being faced in their organizations.

Keynote sessions came from Jo Swinson (Liberal Democrat MP), Cary Cooper (Robertson Cooper), David Macleod (chair of Employee Engagement Taskforce) and Stephen Bevan (The Work Foundation) and all were very well received. Jo Swinson opened the day with a big picture view of the national well-being agenda, and Cary Cooper went on to relate this more specifically to organizational well-being. David Macleod shared the work of his Employee Engagement Taskforce while Stephen Bevan discussed the growing importance of a resilience workplace.

Practitioner case studies came from EDF Energy and Barclays who detailed their projects on resilience and how to truly measure well-being, respectively. Delegates reported that it was good to find out what other organizations were doing in these areas, and that these topics are both high on the agenda.

We had a variety of expert opinions, including the following:

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  Tim Oldman (Leesman) on the importance of workplace design in facilitating productive work.

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  Dean Shoesmith (Public Sector People Managers Association) spoke about the importance of addressing the UK skills gap, and the difference that employer-run learning schemes can have.

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  Perry Timms (BIG Lottery Fund) kept us interested with his “guerilla comms” concept, moving beyond traditional training sessions using new technology and social media.

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  Gordon Tinline and Nick Hayter from Robertson Cooper tackled the changing nature of the business case – and the session participants indicated that getting senior level buy in was still a challenging issue.

The day finished with an energetic panel session chaired by Matthew Taylor, chief executive of The RSA (Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce). The scope of the debate brought together many themes of the day, including those that were raised in the Business Well-Being Network annual report that was launched at the event.

The overarching question was “Are we nearly there, yet?” asking where we have got to with well-being, how far we have still got to go and how we might negotiate any remaining barriers. It was felt by the panel that we could be approaching a “tipping point” but organizations still were not fully integrating well-being into their other activities, and as a result were not maximizing its potential impact.

There was some disagreement over the extent of leadership buy in, but it was agreed that winning over remaining skeptics requires a blend of bottom line data, relevant examples of success and inspiring an emotional commitment. Octavius Black (The Mindgym) was of the opinion that we also need to win individuals’ interest if we are to see real progress, while Ben Willmott (CIPD) believed legislation also has a significant role to play. The inevitable issue of budget arose, but all members of the panel were confident that the business case for well-being could stand up to scrutiny.