Wine Wellness

With the inaugural Marlborough Wine Industry Wellness Week rolling out between May 8 and May 12, we ask industry members to share some of the wellbeing initiatives going on in our wineries, vineyards and service sectors.

Hortus; People and culture manager, Lucy Maclean

Without well people you cannot build a business that will perform consistency over the years, so looking after our people is key to our company culture. Wellbeing needs to be an integral part of company leadership so that people know it’s ok to put up their hand and say, ‘I am drowning’. You have to have a culture that supports those conversations.

Coming off the back of Covid, we have realised that some of our people are not as well as they need to be, because they carried a lot of stress over that time. So now we are really looking at role design, and that all feeds back into wellbeing, because the roles and the workload all have to be realistic.

Hortus won the Workplace Wellness Award in the 2022 Marlborough Chamber of Commerce Business Excellence Awards

Wellbeing work at the Hortus end of season celebration

Saint Clair Family Estate; Winemaker and chair of Saint Clair’s Mana Ake team, Heather Stewart

Our Mana Ake team looks after the wellbeing of our staff, focussing on the six pillars of wellness - mental, physical, spiritual, emotional, social and environmental. The group has implemented a broad range of initiatives, from standing desks to social rowing, a chill out room and art competitions, as well as staff tree planting days. Some of the initiatives naturally overlap with Saint Clair’s education team and environmental team, and we work together to ensure something is happening all year round, to embed wellness in the company culture and keep people conscious of their own wellbeing.

Sleep is one of the most significant things for physical and mental wellbeing, and our surveys found that quite a few of our staff struggle with that, especially in high pressure periods of the year. So we asked sleep specialist Dr David Edgar to come and talk to our full staff before vintage this year. David works with the New Zealand Defence Force and several professional sports teams, and tailored the talk for us, looking at the impact of night shift and longs hours, and the impact of the likes of alcohol and caffeine on sleep. In general it has had a really positive effect. People are much more conscious about good sleep hygiene, and our health and safety officer reported less fatigue and fatiguerelated incidents over harvest. To hear more from Heather about wellness in wine, listen to the Wine Marlborough podcast at marlboroughwinenz.com/podcast

Wither Hills, Winemaker Patricia Miranda-Taylor

I believe is crucial to support a culture of wellness and wellbeing, and to encourage employees to look after their physical and mental health. One major way Wither Hills does that is through flexibility in working hours, which has made a big difference in our company. We started with flexible work for one person or another and now pretty much everyone is using it. It is great for the wellbeing of permanent staff, but has also meant that we can employ people who might not typically have worked in the wine industry, such as retired people or working mothers, for example. It is a mindset of: ‘we can make it work’. There are so many advantages – from boosted moral and sense of wellbeing to increased productivity and motivation, to recruitment from a wider and more diverse pool of people. We also have plenty of worker-inspired initiatives, including the knitting table, which was open to anyone who wanted to pick up the needles and add to the community scarf. Wither Hills also has a knitting club that runs throughout the year and after vintage 2023, more of us understand why they do it for wellness. For me, if something was getting at me over vintage, I would sometimes go there and do a bit of knitting, and be relaxed after that.

Emma Smith

Rothay Vineyards; Owner Ben McLauchlan

Our biggest asset is our team, followed by our soil. We work to ensure there are enough team members to make a 40-hour week the norm not the exception, so when peak work periods come, we employ contractors or more team members. We also try to offer flexibility, so that critical time-dependent jobs get done, but there’s time off for the likes of family events and long weekends. A flexible approach means some choose to work a slightly longer day Monday to Thursday, and then have Friday afternoon off for sport, family time and relaxing.

We also undertake annual skin checks for the team, a personal equipment allowance over and above standard safety equipment, study leave for further education, and morning tea shouts and BBQ lunches to celebrate successes and hard work. I also try and share why we are doing things around the vineyard to try and give a greater understanding of the big picture, and seek feedback from the guys on how things are working and whether they see better ways of doing things. All of the above initiatives are to make their time at Rothay Vineyards as safe and enjoyable as possible so we all get the most we can from the experience.

Catalina Sounds; Winemaker Matthew Ward

Yohanna and Matt Ward have wellness days licked

In the winter of 2022 we introduced a small but meaningful initiative called Wellness Days, through which all full-time staff get three days each year that can be taken in addition to annual and personal leave. Part-timers also receive a pro rata allocation, as do fixed term staff of 6 months or more. Wellness Days are to be used in a way that supports and helps our mental and physical wellness; that can be as simple as going for day hike, visiting family and friends, or going to a day spa – anything that helps our wellbeing.

Yealands; Health, safety & wellbeing manager Brodie Cornelius

Every year we build on the key areas of our wellbeing strategy - Chill, Enjoy, Move, and Connect. We do all the usual stuff, including health checks, fun runs, mental health training sessions, and supporting Pink Shirt Day and Gumboot Friday. But for wellbeing to be truly sustainable, it needs to be more than a ‘one hit wonder’ for our team. Some of our ongoing and staff-led activities include a staff garden, access to period products, food packs, health insurance, supporting better sleep, and normalising discussion about mental health. We do this regularly in our team chats, and this year we welcomed Mike King on-site for some raw but good-humoured insights on ‘keeping it real’ at work and home. Over harvest we engage in a lot of wellbeing activity, with a pastoral care team that does everything from feeding the team to keeping morale up. We also provide onsite physio for injury prevention and an onsite counsellor accessible to all staff to help manage fatigue and other stresses. My favourite initiative during vintage was the childcare subsidy, which has plenty of benefits for a business. We are always looking at how to improve on the Chill focus area, with a responsible drinking programme, and on the Connect pillar, by including Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) scheme workers and family in our day-to-day business.

Maria Agustina Coletti

Marlborough Grape Growers Cooperative; Chief executive Mike Brown

We have noticed increased anxiety and worry amongst our owners for the past few years, so have had a real focus on resilience. We invited Farmstrong to speak to our owners prior to the 2023 vintage, in anticipation that some might find harvest difficult. As we harvest at optimal ripeness, we sometimes ask our owners to hang in there just a while longer, leaving their income hanging on the vine! As for something different, I think our key initiative this year was a weekly ‘harvest beer o’clock’, with an open office late afternoon on Thursdays, so owners could come in and ask questions of the team and see how the harvest was progressing. Most importantly, it was a chance to socialise and share with other owners. Being part of a cooperative is a team game, and this weekly event really helped with that esprit de corps!

MGGC winemaker Drew Ellis putting work life balance to the fore. Photo Jim Tannock

Indevin Group; chief executive Duncan Macfarlane

Wellness means different things to different people, so our wellness initiatives are flexible for people to use as they choose. We offer all permanent employees a ‘You Day’, which is an additional day of special leave to support people taking time out to do something they enjoy. We also provide a wellness allowance for each employee to spend on whatever they see fit. For some that could be yoga classes or a gym subscription, but others might want a massage, or a cooking class, or to learn a new skill. The aim is for everyone to be able to treat themselves.