HR in a Covid world: Project Safe Haven

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, Ryman Healthcare turned its villages into safe havens, determined to do everything possible to make sure its people were happy and safe.

Ryman Healthcare is one of Australasia’s largest aged care and retirement living operators, with 41 villages in New Zealand and Australia, providing homes and care for more than 12,500 residents. Ryman believes its most precious resource is its people, and making sure they get home safe and well every day is a number-one priority. During the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, Ryman Healthcare aimed to ensure that the wellbeing of residents, their families and the team did not suffer as a result of any pandemic measures in place.

A different way of working

Project Safe Haven was Ryman Healthcare’s response to COVID-19 – focused on improving life for team members and showing appreciation for the incredible work done to keep the villages safe.

The COVID-19 crisis put a significant amount of pressure on the Ryman team, and many employees made substantial personal sacrifices to stay at work and keep residents safe. With teams throughout New Zealand and Victoria, Australia, Ryman needed to tailor its approach to different locations. They knew that different groups within the business would have vastly different experiences. For office teams, it meant working from home with brand new ways of collaborating and keeping connected. At the same time, the village teams were caring for residents, with the added pressure of new infection controls. Additionally, construction teams had either reduced capacity or a complete shutdown of their sites. Auckland and Victorian teams also had, and still have, very different working conditions due to the ongoing COVID-19 restrictions and lockdowns.

Implementation

Ryman elected to put as much effort into the wellbeing of its team members as it could, including:

• unlimited COVID-19 paid sick leave

• access to a free Employee Assistance Programme

• a paid day of leave as a Wellness Day

• mental health virtual workshops, eLearning modules and webinars with experts

• additional coaching and counselling for leaders

• a wellbeing month of activities and competitions

• bespoke Ryman Team Wellness website

• regular updates and communication from the CEO

• new wellbeing policy

• fast-tracked rollout of communication app to connect people with important information

• lobbying and advocating to support changes to visa conditions that affected many Ryman family members who are migrant workers.

Project Safe Haven … focused on improving life for team members and showing appreciation for the incredible work that was being done to keep the villages safe.

The following additional benefits were delivered to village team members:

• free meals onsite during lockdowns

• village leaders concierge service, where teams would be able to organise anything from a car service to their lawns being mowed

• essentials and food staples gift box

• onsite saliva testing for COVID-19

• online grocery order service

• micro-breaks and a rehydration policy to make maskwearing easier

• increased wages during Level 4 lockdown

• onsite accommodation or other free accommodation for anyone unable to live in their own home

• increased staffing levels for village teams

• gift vouchers for all team members

• a daily communication to team members and village managers

• additional special paid leave for all village leaders.

Office and support team members also received:

• a flexible working policy, introduced as lockdown ended

• additional leave if they had worked extra hours through lockdown

• a luxury gift box if they had worked extra hours through lockdown.

The forming of a wellbeing committee and the employment of a health, safety and wellbeing manager meant Ryman could deliver targeted solutions to its teams.

The programme was driven by Ryman’s senior executive and leadership teams. The project team included key stakeholders from the operations, clinical, HR, health and safety, construction and procurement teams. The project team would meet to discuss progress on actions and assess changes or new initiatives that were required due to the rapidly changing environment.

Appropriate teams were allocated the work, and resources were provided to enable implementation. The IT team fast-tracked the rollout of Zoom, and, with the support of the HR team, Slack was introduced to Ryman’s people, ensuring they stayed connected and got the information they needed. The forming of a wellbeing committee and the employment of a health, safety and wellbeing manager meant Ryman could deliver targeted solutions to its teams.

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, Ryman Healthcare turned its villages into safe havens, determined to do everything possible to make sure its people were happy and safe.

Impact

Ryman’s annual staff survey in mid- 2020 resulted in an employee net promoter score (ENPS) of +60, a massive jump from an already very positive +33 in 2019. Team member turnover also reduced by over 5 per cent in the same period in 2019. Ryman also included a range of health, safety and wellbeing questions to gain an insight into what was working and what areas needed more attention. It was clear that the efforts being made towards keeping teams safe, happy and well were working. Ryman teams rated ‘feeling safe and well at work’ at 9.3 out of 10 and ‘my organisation cares for my wellbeing’ at 9.1 out of 10.