Hello Dear Friends,

I hope you're well.

I've been talking about, well-being and stress recently. There is no doubt about it operating costs for businesses have risen dramatically. And your employees and yourselves are facing a "cost of living crisis".

And so when times are tough in the business operating environment you seek to cut costs.

I want to share with you in my view 3 of the biggest mistakes when it comes to cost-cutting and scaling back on employee wellness benefits.

❌ Cutting back on a office perk or wellness benefit without communicating the reason why. Everyone knows these are tough times. So if you have to stop something, then just send out a note to let people know that this has to stop for the moment.

❌ Cancelling the Christmas party or event, at short notice. If you need to cancel your event, then do it sooner rather than later. Don't let people look forward to it and then take it away at the last moment. If you need to cancel communicate this. And give managers a small budget to do something small with their teams.

❌ Not understanding that people want to be acknowledged, recognized and praised. That does not need to be a costly or massive endeavour. Simple recognition and reward schemes, such as awarding certificates of achievement, emails from senior leaders with praise, a shout out at a town hall or company wide meeting or a low value gift voucher all go a long way to support staff retention.

In these tough times, we need to remember those basic human needs, of wanting to feel safe, valued and supported in being a thriving and productive employee.

I wanted to end by reminding us all that employee well-being for both neurodiverse and non-neurodiverse staff is important. Here are a couple of tips to support employee well-being in tough times:

✅ Managers check in with your employee's and have conversations about stress, burnout, mental-health. When you ask how are you? Invite further information that the canned response.

✅ Communicate at your team meetings, employee support that is available in terms of mental-health, well-being, time off, flexible working and EAP.

✅ Managers lead by example, communicate to employee that you are available to speak to and can sign-post them to further support, take breaks, let employees know that in order to thrive you need to be healthy and well. Suffering in silent will not help and share all of the opportunities to get support for health and well-being available.

Hit reply and let me know, are you cancelling your Christmas event or are you simply doing it differently?

And if you need support with staff retention and recruitment of neurodiverse employees, get in touch!

Have a good day ahead.

Warm Regards,

Ekua