Key speaker for the first webinar – which begins at 10am– will be Professor Dame Carol Black, DBE, FRCP, FMedSci, University of Cambridge, who will set the context and stress the importance of recognising mental health in the workplace. Joining Dame Carol will be Christian Van Stolk, executive vice president at RAND Europe.
The Covid-19 crisis has forced many people to change the way they work, with a huge increase in the numbers working from home. Employers may have the opportunity to rebuild work policies to better support those employees who want to continue working from home. This could produce wellbeing benefits for employees, without compromising on, and often increasing, productivity. This event will discuss what we mean by productivity and also where some of the clear opportunities lie to support home working more effectively.
Professor Dame Carol Black (pictured) is currently Chair of the British Library, the Centre for Ageing Better, and Think Ahead, the Government’s fast-stream training programme for Mental Health Social Workers. She chairs NHS Improvement’s Advisory Board on Employee Health and Wellbeing, and is Adviser to NHSI and PHE on Health and Work. She is also a member of RAND Europe’s Council of Advisers, and of the Board of UKActive. She recently completed her seven-year term as Principal of Newnham College Cambridge, where she was a Deputy Vice-Chancellor. She still sits on the University’s Advisory Board for the Centre of Science and Public Policy, and the Strategy Board on Student Mental Health and Wellbeing. She is a Patron of the Women’s Leadership Centre in the Judge Business School.
Christian Van Stolk is executive vice president at RAND Europe. He has worked extensively on health and wellbeing in the workplace. His work in the past has focused on improving the health and wellbing of staff in the National Health Service in the UK, maintaining and gaining employment for those with common mental health conditions, building and evidence base for health interventions in workplace settings and looking at the relationship between productivity and health and wellbeing outcomes. He currently manages RAND's work on the Britain's Healthiest Workplace competition with Vitality Health and Asia's Healthiest Workplace competitions with AIA.
Please sign up to take part here. Participants will be sent a link to join via Zoom prior to the start time.
A second webinar - Staying well at work: flexible working and wellbeing, what next? - will follow at 11.30am on Tuesday (6 October).
This session features business psychologist and coach (and Cambridge Network trainer) Sheila McDerment from MC Works. Sheila will focus on how our working practices have changed over the past six months; the impact on our personal and working lives and what we should be doing now. As it looks likely that a hybrid working life will be a reality for a while yet, what are the challenges now in keeping up meaningful communication or integrating new people into a team? And how can we continue to look out for our colleagues and ourselves? This talk will build on Sheila's talk for the Network six months ago, which you can check out on YouTube here.
In addition, two colleagues at AVEVA - Alicia McCollam, Programme Manager for Diversity, Inclusion and Wellbeing, and Paul Wellstead, Sr. Content, Channel and Engagement Manager, - will share their experiences and the initiatives that they have established at AVEVA to keep their workforce connected and healthy.