Wellbeing at Wigan Council

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WELLBEING

A new deal for wellbeing

Wigan Council’s organisational development and strategy team explains its culture change and engagement journey, which has transformed the relationships between staff and their leaders and managers

igan Council recently undertook a huge engagement exercise with our residents, called The Big Listening Project. It gave people a chance to have their say about what really mattered to them and what they felt was important for the borough for the future. During that process, we listened to the local community, schools and other community hubs across the borough, as well as our partners, including the health, fire and police services. The feedback we received helped us populate a new plan called The Deal 2030, which launched last summer. It sets out our aspirations for the next ten years for Wigan. There are three core areas to this strategy: 1 Our people We want them to feel happy, safe and included – and to look out for each other within our communities. 2 Our place We take pride in our environment and our towns – not just the town centre of Wigan, but all the towns within the borough. 3 Our future We are building a future together, where everyone has an opportunity to thrive.

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As we’ve co-created The Deal 2030 with our communities, its driving force is reciprocal behaviour. So, for example, we’ve committed to keeping council tax low, cutting red tape, providing value for money and supporting the local economy. In return, we expect residents to recycle more (and recycle right), be healthy and active, and support their local businesses as part of The Deal.

The Staff Deal

In many ways, the objectives of The Deal 2030 are echoed in Wigan Council’s Staff Deal, under which our managers commit to specific action points while expecting staff to commit to others in return. Essentially, it is a new relationship with staff. It was launched on the basis of one employee’s idea that, alongside our external work, we should also think about what we must do internally. This is particularly important for us, since two-thirds of our staff live in the borough, and we regard them as advocates within the community and for the council.

So, in a similar mould to The Deal 2030, our approach is that we will care for and support the health and wellbeing of our staff. But, in return, we’re asking our staff to take some ownership and accountability for keeping active. We want to reward and recognise hard work – but as part of that, staff are responsible for giving us helpful feedback and ideas. We want to provide open, honest and visible leadership – but in return, be open and honest with us.

BeWigan behaviours

We bring the Staff Deal to life through our BeWigan behaviours. These are: Be Positive, Be Accountable and Be Courageous, as well as our more recent addition, Be Kind. We also have our BeWigan manager behaviours: Inspire, Care and Engage. To support our behaviours, we have a multitude of different initiatives, all channelled through our internal communications, staff awards, wellbeing support packages and one-to-ones (which, at Wigan, are called ‘My Time’). At the heart of our approach is a focus on strengthening the relationships between employees and line managers.

As part of our health and wellbeing offer, we have an army of volunteers across the organisation who we call champions. They are passionate about this part of our agenda and are dedicated to supporting it. They help to communicate wellbeing messages, arrange walks to get people out of the office and host ‘tea and talk’ sessions where colleagues can come and speak to them about any issues. Champions can then signpost those employees to further resources.

We have employee assistance and occupational health programmes, plus a fast-track physio service. So instead of

going to the GP and having to wait a number of weeks for physiotherapy, the fast-track programme enables staff to access on-site treatment within seven to ten days. This gives them much quicker access to physiotherapy than via their GP and enables them to remain in work.

Our staff choir provides colleagues with an opportunity to come together for an activity with a number of positive mindfulness impacts. One of these impacts is the endorphins that are released when you sing. We have also launched a brand new, stress-assessment tool for individuals and teams. Not only can our managers use the tool to help support their teams, either collectively or individually, but employees can also ask to work through the tool and supporting action plan with their manager.

In addition, we place a real focus on communication and engagement. Staff meet with leaders on a regular basis, and the directors are really visible and take time to listen to staff right across the organisation. We have a focus on flexible, smarter working. In our office, there’s a quiet breakout area where we can just plug in a laptop and get on with work – or we can sit close to someone we’re working with, or even work in other buildings – depending on what work we need to do.

Doing things differently, not doing more things

At Wigan, it’s more a case of doing things differently, rather than doing more things. It’s about being brave and courageous in how we approach opportunities so we’re not just doing things the way we’ve always done them. We also have bold ambitions as part of our Deal 2030 strategy. How can we work collectively with the community and with our partners? How can we form different relationships, or build existing ones, ultimately supporting our staff to be the best that they can be?

By investing in our staff and supporting them, Wigan Council is having a tangible impact upon residents – because our staff want to do the best they can. We give them permission to do things differently, and to work closely with our residents, communities and partners. For example, some of our staff are co-located with our health partners, and we also have teams that are working within our local communities.

Everyone’s got a role to play. It’s all about working together, being clear about what we expect, and building and embedding that within our culture to guide everything we do. This article was written by the organisational development and strategy team at Wigan Council