This week marks wellbeing week, and to celebrate we’ve written a blog to summarise some of the many ways we aim to support employee wellbeing here at Makara. Promoting all aspects of wellbeing is important to us because as research shows, high levels of wellbeing are often associated with lower rates of illness, as well as increased longevity and productivity. With the majority of our workforce working from home, we’re proud that we have plenty of successful tried and tested activities as well as  a culture based on kindness and flexibility that allows each of us to maintain a healthy work/life balance.

At the heart of Makara is a sense of being part of a family, and since our recent acquisition by Precision Value and Health who hold many of the same principles as us, we are happily part of a bigger family.  Makara, like any family, is committed to ensuring everyone is supported in their day-to-day work and their day-to-day wellbeing, whether it’s mental, physical or financial. As an agile company with the majority of employees working remotely, wellbeing is taken seriously and openly discussed –  we take care to care for others we work with which is important when you are not face-to-face or side by side every day.

So, what are these tried and tested activities you may ask? Here is a sample of a few:

• Encouragement to take regular breaks and to take the time to chat to others, especially those you don’t work with. Our longstanding ‘coffee pals’ scheme randomly matches people up for a chat and a cuppa.
• Reminders to stretch and do exercises to avoid the niggles commonly linked with desk work. We hope this helps to balance the sometimes more stressful periods of life and keep everyone happy.
• Monthly wellbeing themes that have covered a range of topics from Nutrition & Hydration, where we would remind everyone to drink plenty of water and share our favourite healthy recipes, to the Importance of Sleep, where we shared tips and videos for those who have trouble falling and staying asleep.
  • Our most recent theme for the month of May was ‘Walking in Nature’, which involved a walking competition called Makara Takes a Hike to encourage people to spend time in nature and to raise awareness and much needed funds for our chosen charities. It is scientifically proven that nature can do wonders for mental health so now that the sun is out, why not use this time to go to your nearest nature reserve or have a phone meeting outside. Nature is a very big part of our culture, so we try and implement some sort of activity where nature is involved.
  • In the coming months and in line with mental health and wellbeing, we will be launching a gratitude and appreciation month, a Mindfulness month and much more – so stay tuned!

And how do we cultivate a culture of kindness and flexibility?

• We signed up to the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation’s ‘Kindness in the Workplace Pledge’. This is a promise to our employees and clients that we are committed to making kindness the norm at Makara. We celebrate this pledge proudly by displaying the Random Acts of Kindness monthly calendar on our intranet where we also have access to meditation videos, recipes and all things wellbeing.
• We promote and talk about kindness as one of our core company values.
• We allow people to manage their work and life as best suits them, while always being mindful of delivering excellent client service

In addition to all this we also have the WellSoc (wellbeing and social) internal workstream which sees several members of the Makara team discuss and implement activities to improve employee wellbeing and encourage socialising across the Makara family. Since this has been set up, we’ve seen many a quiz from our in-house quiz master Ben, as well as Halloween fancy dress and pumpkin carving competitions and of course, the Makara pet show. Expect plenty more from WellSoc over the next few months, as we cover topics ranging from ‘Favourite Chocolates’ to ‘Body Positivity’, and I’m sure a few more quizzes along the way! As always, if you have any ideas for what you would like to see from WellSoc, please feel free to drop the team a message.

So much of our time is spent at work, it is important the workplace is a happy, fun, comfortable, positive, kind and flexible place to be, as well a productive place to be. Afterall, if we have happy employees, we have happy clients!