Wellbeing At Work
Welcome to our blog series on Wellbeing at Work, exploring Noble Studio’s experience and learnings around team and individual wellness in the workplace.
Thoughts from Lindsay, Director of Noble Studio - 2 min read
Caring about Care
When we talk about Care being a core value at Noble Studio, we reference several types of care - care for the quality of our design work, care for our clients, and care for our team.
Over the years it has become clear that caring for the team crucially underpins our ability to produce great work, look after our clients and ultimately has led to the success and staying power of the studio and team.
What started out as small acts of kindness in the fledgling days of freelancing, has grown into our caring culture, and one of the things I am most proud of about Noble Studio.
How has our approach to wellbeing grown with the studio?
We may be a small company, but we have always had big aspirations in how we treat the team. With increased capacity and profit as the company has grown, we have been able to build our ideals into our business model. When we first started out; wellbeing looked like covering for a family emergency, or sharing out profits at Christmas to cover looming tax bills. I enjoy looking back to see how those initial ideas have grown and developed into studio policies. By building ideas into our business model, we have been able to prioritise regular time and money for team wellbeing, making sure it's not just a nice-to-have add-on.
The definition of wellbeing
Mental health has been a big focus of ours recently, but the definition of wellbeing can be much broader, considering a person holistically within their working context. For me this is the foundational thinking as to what makes a good Job.
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) who ‘champion better work and working lives around the world’, have produced a set of 7 domains of wellbeing, to help companies create comprehensive wellbeing policies.
“There’s no 'one-size-fits-all' approach to designing a health and wellbeing strategy; its content should be based on the unique needs and characteristics of the organisation and its workforce.” - CIPD
This framework has helped me see how we can progress our exploration wellbeing - beyond just health. Specifically we want to delve deeper into financial wellbeing and personal growth of our team members, and the 7 domains resource provides a tangible starting point.
Burnout and beyond
Our wellbeing culture is always evolving, as, based on the needs of our team we try out new practices and develop our ways of working. My own experience of burn out has also influenced our practices. A crunch point in my mental wellbeing a few years ago led me to urgently take time out, before intentionally reducing my working hours and recalibrating my role. Seeing that process unfold personally has led me to be more curious about others, and we have become more conscious about prevention and support for when tough times inevitably arise for everyone in our team.
Where next for wellness?
There will always be more to do - especially as we grow and develop. We are excited to learn from others on our journey -
What practices do you love from your place of work?
What is working or not working?
In this blog series we will share our experiences on our practices, including topics like Wellness Action Plans, and our on-going Greenhouse philosophy that gives the team time and money to spend on learning, resting, and playing within their working hours.
Stay tuned for more articles about Wellbeing at Work, or drop me a message if you would like to chat more about wellbeing in the workplace.
- Lindsay