Employee Benefits Live 2022: Developing a wellbeing proposition to meet staff needs that is meaningful and relevant is important for businesses, according to Charlotte Hallett (pictured), head of HR at Nespresso UK and Republic of Ireland.
Hallett’s keynote, titled ‘Human at the Heart – how Nespresso is implementing a whole-person approach to employee wellbeing’, closed the second day of Employee Benefits Live 2022 on Thursday 6 October at the ExCeL London.
She explained during her presentation that Covid-19 (Coronavirus) changed how she thought about not just her own wellbeing, but the topic as a whole. After feeling burnt out at her previous role at Virgin Atlantic, she moved to Nespresso, where she found the passion, purpose and values of both the workforce and the business appealing.
She said: “During the pandemic, Nespresso sent out wellbeing packages to staff, launched the Headspace app, online yoga and gym classes, and even had an online trip to the theatre at Christmas. The chief executive officer really encouraged employees to look after themselves in a tough time and put into place daily sessions for discussions and training during lockdown, which offered staff the opportunity to connect.”
Human connection is important to Hallett, as she stated that supporting this connection while working from home is critical to wellbeing.
She added: “We are all people first and employees second, so at Nespresso we hold onto the human approach and evolve from there. Human connection is a core aspect of our wellbeing strategy, so we have held several connection events for staff as a response to what they were asking for. These went really well and helped employees to get excited about coming into the office on our anchor days, when it was mandatory for them to come in.”
Hallett concluded that Nespresso is in the processing of setting up a six-month programme that has been designed to bring together content related to mental wellbeing, and also combines individual and group learning and coaching. Employees are grouped together with others they do not know from across the business to learn about who they are and what they need to thrive.