The Brief

“Can you help us collaborate with a business community on workplace wellbeing?”

That was the question Healthy Families Waitākere posed to us in late 2019. They wanted to work with an entire business community on workplace wellbeing and wanted some additional connections and capability to bring this about.

If you haven’t heard of Healthy Families New Zealand, here’s the short explanation. 

It’s a large-scale Ministry of Health prevention initiative that aims to improve people's health where they live, learn, work and play. It brings community leadership together in a united effort for better health. The initiative is unique in that it takes a systems approach to the reduction of risk factors for major health loss and inequity.

The Healthy Families team in Waitākere realised they needed independent help to build a trusting working relationship with influencers in a business community. And they didn’t just want a nice conversation; they wanted to build a collaborative programme of work based on business needs.

Our Approach

A scoping process to reduce risk

We recommended to Healthy Families Waitākere that they start with a scoping process to find some potential partners. We felt this would reduce their financial risks. They could test the waters before deciding whether to move ahead with a larger project.

The desired outcomes for the scoping process were to understand:

1. the readiness in the business community to launch an innovation programme. 

2. the readiness of potential partners to contribute financially or in-kind.

3. the "shared agenda" that might bind people together and the language that might resonate best for different audiences. 

To achieve this, we interviewed a range of potential partners from the government and community sectors. And we approached business community leaders in West Auckland to identify a community to work with.

Eventually, we settled on Rosebank as the ideal community to test this new approach. The Rosebank Business Association had previously demonstrated an appetite for innovation and for addressing community needs.

And then the COVID lockdown hit.

We decided to extend the timeframes for the scoping process, but we pushed ahead - taking all the in-person conversations online into virtual workshops and events.

Identifying lessons learned from the scoping process

To help other Healthy Families sites, we facilitated a Lessons Learned session.

Together with Healthy Families Waitākere, we identified five key ‘enablers’ that made it easier to collaborate with a business community: 

1. Find a champion within the business community who could speak for your cause

2. Identify and forge relationships with key influencers (such as a government minister) as early as possible

3. Make sure you have people in your project team who can align wellbeing with business productivity

4. Establish support mechanisms for your project team’s own wellbeing

5. Engage an independent facilitator with experience in business communities.

Launching the Rosebank Wellbeing Collab

The result of the scoping process was that Healthy Families Waitākere felt comfortable moving forward with the full project - with their eyes wide open to the opportunities and risks.

To strengthen the project, we identified three values to influence our engagement:

Our next mission was to identify the opportunities and challenges for workplace wellbeing in Rosebank. We interviewed around 40 business owners and staff to identify some key themes. We heard a range of views and ideas.

This is where many organisations get stuck. You have a long list of ideas, and - not wanting to ruffle any feathers - you try to keep all of them on your to-do list.

But we knew that the project would stall unless we could narrow the focus.

Over a series of virtual workshops with a Co-design Leadership Group, we slowly narrowed the focus to four strategic themes:

1. Shared resources and initiatives

2. Looking out for our business neighbours

3. Improving our workforce financial literacy

4. Reducing traffic congestion
   
   

The Result

The result is the birth of the Rosebank Wellbeing Collab. As far as we know, this is the first business-community wide approach to workplace wellbeing. We know of no other initiative that is looking at the wellbeing needs across a whole business community.

At the time of writing, it is too early to identify the impacts of the Rosebank Wellbeing Collab.
But we are seeing some positive leading indicators of success:

• There is an active Leadership Group with membership from a range of local businesses

• Business people have taken the lead on several working groups

• The Rosebank Business Association plans to include “wellbeing” as a key pillar in its new strategic plan - which is not something a business association would usually focus on

• The Rosebank Business Association and Healthy Families Waitākere have formalised their partnership

• The Rosebank Business Association has agreed to act as the ‘backbone organisation’ to coordinate the collaborative programme.

And perhaps the most important indicator of success comes from some of the programme participants who were openly skeptical at the start. Their mindsets have shifted. And as we know from systems change, the most impactful way to make change is to influence people’s beliefs and values.

Read more about the exciting projects and progress in the Rosebank Wellbeing Collab Progress Report (December 2020).

Additional Articles about the Healthy Families Waitākere and Rosebank Business Association Collab:

• Rosebank Wellbeing Collab - Issue 170, Round about. magazine

• Employee wellbeing a key focus for workplace strategies in West Auckland - Healthy Families Waitākere newsletter