Hello PPMA friends

At this time of year it’s as important as ever to take care of yourself as well as others and Hannah Bornet, Wellbeing Manager at the Financial Ombudsman Service and PPMA Let’s Talk Wellbeing Deputy Theme lead shares some great tips on how to do this.

“It feels only right that this post refers to 3 out of the 5 ways to wellbeing: give, connect and take notice. Although this is the season to be jolly, sometimes it doesn’t always feel like it. With the cold weather, dark mornings (and early evenings!) and pressure to attend so many events, meet deadlines and stay healthy, it can all be too much. But there is light, in the form of nature, candles, blankets and hot chocolate. Hygge is a great Danish concept which is all to do with being in the moment and feeling cosy and content. Whether this is with friends, or on your own, you can relish and give thanks to your situation and surroundings. Plus it’s a great way to counteract busy December and drab January. So give to yourself this festive season and mark out some hygge time.

The great thing about this time of year too is the abundance of giving to others – the good that people do to raise awareness and funds for so many important causes is so wonderful to see. When you get your 5^th request to donate, before you grit your teeth or heave a large sigh, think about what you would spend that same amount on – £5 lunch, £10 for a couple of coffees each week…plus you get to feel good about yourself for doing something great. It is not all about giving money, you can donate to foodbanks or clothes appeals, but perhaps even more powerful, you can give your time. Here at Financial Ombudsman Service we held a community event for elderly community groups of Tower Hamlets to come along for afternoon tea and games. The band went down a storm, as did the sandwiches which made it into pockets and bags if they weren’t consumed on the spot. We had 15 volunteers from the organisation to help run the afternoon and talk to the lovely people who had made an effort to come and visit us. The sheer buzz and delight of the event ended in everyone heading to the ‘dancefloor’ for a little boogie. It’s safe to say both community members and employees left with big grins on their faces and feeling satisfied. We are so grateful for the virtuosity of our staff – what a way to connect to our community!

For some people, however, this time of year brings poignancy to the absence of family and friends. At the ombudsman we are conscious of the impact of loneliness on people’s mental and physical health. We have taken notice of this and signed the government’s employer Loneliness pledge to make sure we are tackling loneliness in our workplace and would encourage other organisations to consider signing up too. Our sports and social committee arrange a variety of events throughout the year which encourages people who haven’t yet made connections at work to come along and meet new people. We have seen an increase in individuals signing up over the last 6 months as the popularity of the events spread.

We see people at work every day so are potentially the only people around to spot whether someone needs a little lift – buy a coffee or invite them for a drink. Or even more simply make sure you take the time to acknowledge them and the contribution they are making to the organisation. PPMA are running an online PPMA Advent calendar throughout December to share good spirits and joy as far as we can and reach out to some of those who may not look forward to this time of year. Across the country, public sector workers are taking notice and connecting with colleagues by telling someone how much they matter and saying ‘it’s wonderful knowing you’. Check out our social media for the details and do get involved.

It really is #wonderfulknowingyou all. Have a lovely Christmas.

Hannah Bornet, Wellbeing Manager, Financial Ombudsman Service and PPMA Let’s Talk Wellbeing Deputy Theme.

Dear PPMA colleagues and friends

As we approach conference, our President Karen Grave shares her hopes and expectations for this year’s annual conference.

“Hi everyone, I’m so looking forward to seeing as many of you as possible in Birmingham. As ever in the run up to conference the team is both excited and anxious to make sure that we haven’t forgotten anything critical! Putting on annual conference is a huge undertaking and before I share my thoughts, I want to say an enormous thank you to Leatham, Kim, Grace and everyone else who makes it possible for us to put this event on. Our focus will be on making sure you have a fantastic conference experience!

I try to take stock of the progress we have made before each of our events. Last year in Newcastle was a real thrill and it was a very personal opportunity for me to return to the place I studied at Uni. This year, I’m looking forward to conference with the same enthusiasm but for a number of reasons:

• We’ve got a great theme ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’ ,that always makes me smile just when I think about it. But there is a lot more to this than a happy slogan. We have a real opportunity to increase our learning about the impact of leadership, employee engagement, wellbeing and productivity on our workforce colleagues. I’m fascinated about this link because I think it we can collectively crack this with our colleagues, it will really help us harness all of the potential of our people. It’s good for them but more importantly it’s critical for the citizens we serve. Each year we see more and more external pressure on our ability to deliver services. Finances are a constant challenge. However in my view, there is an increasing and potentially more divisive threat. Our politics are increasingly fragile and it’s harder to see policy proposals being developed that help those of us in public services really address our most pressing challenges. So to overcome this, we need to take our destiny in our own hands – enabling and empowering our people isn’t just a nice to consider – it’s an imperative for all of us. I can’t wait to hear from John, Maria, Beverley, Jamil and Shonette and of course, all of our amazing fringe session speakers. We’re going to learn a lot.
• We’ll be welcoming existing and new members to conference. It’s fantastic to meet old friends again and find out what’s happened since we last met in Newcastle. But it’s always really brilliant to welcome new members to the PPMA family. We’ll be saying a big hello to all of them – but in particular, I’m really chuffed to welcome HR & OD colleagues from all Greater Manchester Local Authorities. They are going to add a fascinating dimension to our community and I hope we will learn a lot from their DevoManc experiences in particular.
• This is also our first national event since our restructure last year. We’ve come a long way since then and we now have appointments to all of our key posts. Our first Extended Board meeting at the end of March was so exciting. Our new Theme Leads and our Regional Chairs brought energy, new ideas and a commitment to our collective future that left me feeling really hopeful.  You will have the opportunity to meet Board colleagues over the 3 days, so please make sure you take the time to meet them. Every single Board member undertakes their role on a voluntary basis – that is a huge commitment but they do it because of a collective belief in the value of PPMA. If you are interested in getting involved in the running of the association please come and talk to one of us. Board members will have a different colour lanyard to conference attendees, so we will all be easy to spot!
• We’ll have plenty of exciting things to say about our membership offering too. I am very proud of the breadth and depth of our offering – it compares very well to other professional associations. Our ability to offering a compelling value proposition depends on the great support from our existing and new sponsors, the commitment of our Board members and all of your ongoing support. You should never underestimate the amount of work that goes into volunteering for Board roles, so I encourage all of you to take advantage of what we offer.
• And last but not least, we will be announcing the winners of our PPMA Excellence in People Management Awards programme. I love this part of Gala Dinner – it’s always brilliant to recognise the efforts of our winners and everyone who takes part. With the pressures of work, it’s sometimes easy to forget that there is a huge amount of innovative, creative and inspiring work being done day in and day out across public service HR & OD. Gala Dinner is our opportunity to reflect on that, enjoy good food and great company and kick back and have fun.

And talking about fun, we’re really looking forward to our Rock the Kasbah theme…….

I can’t wait to see you soon!”

Hello PPMA Members and friends

I’m back from a wonderful few PPMA working days in Scotland. One of the privileges of the Presidency is that you are invited to sister organisation conferences. So last Wednesday night took me to Euston station and a first Caledonian Sleeper experience. The SPDS conference is held at the Old Golf Course at St Andrews, so as a fan of the game – and being much more Scottish/Irish than English – I was looking forward to the trip anyway. But the icing on the cake – and the ice in the Whisky (it’s an insult to put water in whisky north of the border ), was the amazing agenda.

Its theme was Channel your Inner Warrior. These days I’m mostly too tired to even find my inner warrior, but nevertheless I went with an open mind. And I am so glad that I did.

SPDS is a fantastic community of professionals across the breadth of Local Government in Scotland. There are 30 councils in total and they are often quite different demographically and geographically. I met some wonderful people, including outgoing and incoming Presidents – Sharon Beattie (Head of HR, Customer and Communications at East Renfrewshire) and Sharon McKenzie (Head of HR at Fife Council) respectively. I also met the inimitable Kristine Johnson, Chief Officer HR at Stirling Council and the new Vice President SPDS. It was also great to see Glenda Gray again from Aberdeenshire Council who came to our Annual Conference in April.

Personally, I’m thrilled to see much more reference to positive psychology in our HR & OD agenda these days. Positive psychology and ideas around the Inner Warrior, have been in the self-help literature for a while, but have often been poo-pooed as important components of workforce interventions. I had a misdiagnosed hypothyroid condition for 16 years, in spite of having had all the clinical symptoms for longer than that – and to try and come to terms with feeling so ill, I went on a long adventure into neuropsychobiology, energy healing, quantum physics, reiki, meditation, Hopi ear candles etc – the works.

Not all of this is evidence-based mind you, but that is changing significantly – and to our benefit as practitioners. Much of the evidence comes from neuroscience and there have been a lot of amazing medical doctors who have pushed the boundaries with their brain research. Spirituality and positive psychology isn’t for hippies of the 60’s – it’s for the HR & OD warriors of the now and the future.

Sharon McKenzie and her team gave us an agenda that covered happiness, overcoming adversity, looking at our warriors of the future etc. Interspersed with that we also had a brilliant Legal update from Graham and Frances from Clyde and Co. It’s been a very long time since I’ve laughed deliberately at a legal presentation, but these wonderful professionals did the trick.

Trudy Birtwell, Head of Organisation and Learning at SOLACE and I spoke about the Younger Warriors of the Future and our collective work on 21^st Century Public Servant relates to this. As ever, we had a technical glitch with our presentation which reinforced the point that we need more youngster in public services to help us on the older end of the age continuum!!! We talked about the work we are doing on our Talent Management programmes and the apprenticeships that SOLACE run as examples of the work we are doing to encourage young people into our fantastic sector.

There are some great examples of work being done in Scotland that we plan to share in blogs over the coming weeks. I want us to be able to learn and share as widely as we are able to.

On the way back home, I had a couple of hours in the glorious city that is Edinburgh. I came home with Lorne Sausage, Stornoway black pudding and Haggis. If you have never had a proper Scottish breakfast, you’ve basically not lived, but could I find the best part – fruit pudding. No I could not – not even in Jenners! That search will be the subject of another trip to Scotland I’m sure.

In the meantime, keep well. We’re working on appointing people to roles in our new structure and will have that ready for end November. We plan to be back to our regular weekly blog schedule then.

PPMA President

Hello PPMA Member and friends

Due to the huge success of the summer series of Wellbeing Summits, thanks to the sponsorship of our partner Absentia, we are delighted to announce that we will be running two further events over the autumn which are free to attend for PPMA members. They will be held in Bristol on 24 October and in Edinburgh on 31 October

As organisations strive for growth, and seek to achieve more with less, understanding the significance of wellbeing from a strategic business perspective – of the organisation, team and individual employee – becomes imperative. By attending this event you will learn:

• How to create a healthier, happier and more profitable business culture.
• How to use the #HUMANtouch model to enable your organisation and employees to develop and high-performing mindset throughout.
• Why major companies across the UK are turning to Absentia and how they can help you to reduce absence and increase profitability.

Details for how reserve your place will be published shortly – we hope you will join us for this fantastic event.

Leatham Green,  PPMA  Interim Executive Director

Hello PPMA members and friends

We have another post in our series looking at the challenges and opportunities around the integration of Heath and Social care and Cath McCarty, Head of HR and Head of Adult Services at North Yorkshire Council looks at the good work being undertaken by North Yorkshire and a number of partners in improving social care in the region, illustrating the benefits of integrated services.

“North Yorkshire CC’s Vanguard work with NHS partners and care market studies show that our demand for services and demographic trends are five years ahead of the national average. Occupancy rates for care services is running at 95%.

North Yorkshire is an area which is fortunate to have high levels of employment, however this means that ensuring the health and social care sector is an attractive and competitive place to work is one of our major challenges.

Harrogate Vanguard is one of several pilots in the country to adopt an integrated approach to new models of care for health and social care services. Our vision is to ensure the people of Harrogate and rural districts receive high quality affordable healthcare, and play an active role in making decisions about their own health. We aim to ensure more people stay healthier and independent for longer, have choice and control over their lives and care, and that costs are reduced across the system.

The partners involved in the project are Harrogate District Foundation Trust, Tees Esk and Wear Valley NHS Foundation Trust, Harrogate & Rural District Clinical Commissioning Group, General Practitioners and North Yorkshire CC.

We have worked together to redesign care out of hospital, based on messages from our residents. Our aim is to shift investment from acute services to provide more support in the community.

We are focusing on the links between mental health, wellbeing and physical health, as well as providing a more joined up and faster response to crisis. The overall aim is to avoid hospital admissions while supporting people to take a more active role in managing their own health and wellbeing. Our voluntary sector partners are key in our work.
The project focused on streamlining operational processes to eliminate duplication across the health and care sector. This enabled the efficiencies to be reinvested, while enabling an integrated working environment.

The county council has also developed a range of prevention initiatives:

• Stronger communities, a universal prevention programme provides start-up funding, advice and support for communities across North Yorkshire, helping people to support each other. There are dozens of initiatives attached to this such as support to community libraries and community transport, sporting memories clubs and training volunteers for home visits and initiatives to connect older and isolated people with each other.

• Living Well is a new service helping people on the cusp of care to build their confidence to continue living independently at home. Council staff from a range of backgrounds comprise this new team working in partnership with clinical commissioning groups, district councils and the voluntary sector. Team members are trained to spend time with people on a one to one basis to help them achieve the outcomes they want.

• Extra Care is the county council’s flagship programme supporting people to live in their own homes with care and support when they need it. Schemes may also incorporate GP surgeries, libraries, short break respite services and specialist accommodation for people with dementia. In the last 10 years we have developed 19 schemes, three more are under construction and potentially another 30 schemes in the pipeline.”

What is wellbeing? How do you know what your employees are actually thinking? Does your organisation take wellbeing seriously?

To try and answer some of these questions, West Midlands Employers and PPMA recently hosted a ‘Let’s Talk Wellbeing’ event. Here’s some of the views and methods of managing wellbeing from the three experts who spoke on the day.

David Elliot is a wellbeing manager with Public Health England. PHE works with local authorities and the West Midlands Combined Authority to promote mental health and wellbeing. PHE linked with Business in the Community to create a digital Mental Health Toolkit for Employers. 1 in 6 working age people have been diagnosed with a mental health condition, so the toolkit was created to raise awareness of mental health issues. The toolkit directs the user to many resources and has been viewed over 4000 times since its launch in May 2016.

More than 50% of individuals don’t feel comfortable disclosing their mental health problems with their colleagues; it is important to understand how employees feel and what their ambitions are, and ultimately for them to ‘be themselves’ and feel comfortable at work.

So, what can we do?
Organisations need to have a structure for support and training for employees and managers to be competent in recognising signs of mental health. Consistency is key, to ensure that all employees and managers feel comfortable to have conversations about mental health and wellbeing. If you invest in a mental health strategy, your return on investment will be well worth it.

The strategy should be reflective of supporting policies that meet legal obligations, and should be communicated to employees. It is important to always think: what else can we do? Mental health is everyone’s responsibility.

Lynn Walley joined us to talk about mindful awareness in the workplace. Having a background in coaching and leadership within the public sector, she was able to share her thoughts and knowledge on positive psychology. We discussed how individuals respond to challenges and change, and how negative thoughts can be reframed into positive goals.

Lynn asked the group what their biggest HR challenge is that they’re experiencing right now; three mains themes that came from this were managing sickness absence, culture change and capacity to lead and employee engagement. Although a fast environment is expected, people are trying to do too much, too fast, so we need to take the time to stop and rethink towards a positive mind-set. Lynn bases a lot of her work on Martin Seligman’s theories.

Mental health can be heavily influenced by job design. Take a look at your team, are the right people in the right jobs? Do you know your staff and their personalities? Fisher’s personal transition curve reflects the different thought processes of employees throughout change. (See diagram above).

Empathy and understanding are key management competencies to be able have authentic conversations with employees, building a good relationship based on trust and communication.The office environment, believe it or not, is a key component in shaping employees mental health as the ‘office vibe’ affects emotions. How does noise affect productivity? Silence increases this and creates new brain cells.

Carl Pearson is an executive coach and workshop leader and a qualified Tai Chi Practitioner and instructor. He discussed joy and happiness, quoting Mark Williams and Danny Penman: ‘mindfulness is a learnable mental practice to cope with stress and pressures of modern life’. The benefits of being mindful include:

⦁    Decreasing anxiety, depression and irritability
⦁    Improve memory and reaction times
⦁    Increase mental and physical stamina
⦁    Better relationships
⦁    Higher immune system response

Carl discussed mindful leadership, if leaders aren’t resilient, how can employees be?

As an example of mindfulness, Carl asked us to participate in a COSMIC exercise. We sat and focussed on our breathing and ‘taking a moment’; this exercise can be done by anyone to relieve stress and open the mind.
Engagement isn’t just being productive, receiving reward and recognition, being motivated or committed to goals; it is being creatively engaged through being mindful.

Mindfulness is not about learning to accept the unacceptable, it is about being aware of others and what makes them happy.

We’d love to hear your views and experiences on wellbeing in the workplace, so why not leave us a comment by clicking the comments box at the top of the page?