Statistics show that if you make a one percent improvement today, you'll be 37 times more improved by 2023
Ahead of HRD’s Workplace Mental Health Summit on May 26, 2022, we sat down with Keynote Speaker Duncan Young, head of workplace wellbeing at Landlease to chat about developing a holistic approach to workplace wellbeing. Young believes that small steps can lead to larger incremental change that help individuals to thrive.
“We always think that everything’s about these huge meaningful conversations but we’re ignoring all the little things,” said Young “Statistics show that if you make a one percent improvement today and then continued it every day for a year, you’d be 37 times better at the end of the year. This compound interest of these small, incidental activities makes an enormous difference over time. Small steps make a big difference.”
“We’re trying to look at health and wellbeing essentially as a continuum and everyone sits somewhere on that continuum. Health is really about the management of chronic disease. Wellbeing is the feeling you get when you’re thriving in life, when you’re being the best possible version of yourself, and everyone sits on that continuum over time.”
Young specialises in an area called ‘appreciative inquiry’, a strengths-based, positive approach to leadership development and organisational change.
“What we look at is essentially how people perform at their best, so we look at their strengths, but what gives you the strength to do what you do every day,” said Young.
At Landlease they look broadly at the levers for good wellbeing. It’s not how much sleep you get, it’s about the quality of that recovery, or nourishing your body, not nourishments impact on your physical person, but the link between food and mental wellbeing and both anxiety and depression.
“Your gut biome generates serotonin. Serotonin is a happiness hormone. So, if you get your gut biome right, you’re going to be a happier and healthier person,” Young told HRD.
During the Summit Young will share insights from the Landlease habit change program ‘Build Your Ideal Day’. A strength-based habit change program that uses appreciative inquiry and combines it with habit change theory to help you build your own ideal day.
“The program we have developed is called Build Your Ideal Day. How you can take what’s working, the bright spots in life, the flashes of success that illuminate the map for others to show their spark as well, that’s the kind of stuff we’re trying to do.”
Register for HRD’s Workplace Mental Health Summit here.
