If you’re an HR manager or an HR director and you’re responsible for the wellbeing, the resilience, and the energy and performance levels of the people within your organization or business, then this bonus episode is for you! In line with our event, Increasing Employee Engagement and Retention: What Part Does Wellbeing Play and Why Does It Matter on the 3rd of July, Steven Cochrane of Pinsent Masons joins the podcast to talk about the legal implications of not having a retention policy or strategy, and not thinking about wellbeing for your organization. We’ve got a wealth of information to share, so make sure you don’t miss out!

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Topics Discussed in this Episode:


What wellbeing means in a legal


What questions you should ask around wellbeing


Legislation that’s relevant to employees’ wellbeing




The Health and Safety at Work Act


The Equality Act


The Working Time Regulations


Flexible Working




The legal implications of a company without a wellbeing strategy


The costly errors and oversights made by some organizations


The impact of technology on wellbeing



Key Takeaways:


The law is important, but thinking about wellbeing through a legal prism often leads to a compliance-led approach to wellbeing, which is not very helpful and may even be counterproductive. Rather than asking “What do we need to do?” or “What can we not do?” or “What are the liabilities if we do X, Y, or Z?” the questions should be around “What makes the employees happy?”  “What are the stressors in the workplace and how do we mitigate or eradicate them?”


There are a number of legal protections in the wellbeing space. From a statutory perspective, there is a whole raft of employment legislation that deals with stress at work and wellbeing, as well as a whole raft of European and domestic safety legislation, and common law obligations and duties of care. These are all highly relevant in terms of thinking about wellbeing from an employee engagement perspective.


It’s not always easy to find an approach that works for everybody. While many organizations assume that flexible working, agile working, remote accessing, etc. is a great thing, some employees might find it rather invasive, intrusive, and actually quite stressful. There are those who like to separate work from home, and so technology in terms of remote working and having access to the system and being able to work from home has a negative impact on their wellbeing.



Action Steps for HR Managers and HR Directors:


Make sure that you have a retention policy or a wellbeing strategy in place.


Don’t take the compliance-led approach when dealing with employees.



Steven said:
“What we see more often are situations where employees are suffering from stress. That’s exacerbated quite often by poor management, lack of support, lack of empathy, quite often by a lack of education and mental health awareness.”

“In terms of success stories, employers who have excellent retention and their attrition rates are very positive, that’s the best success story you can have.”

Thanks for listening!

If you’re interested in what you just heard and you happen to be in London on Tuesday, 3rd of July, we are running an event called Increasing Employee Engagement and Retention: What Part Does Wellbeing Play and Why Does It Matter. Check out the link for more details!

And if you’re interested in finding out what your health IQ is, take the Health IQ test to find out, and get a free 39-page report built around our six signals, which are sleep, mental health, energy, body composition, digestion, and fitness.

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Links to things we discuss in the show:
Increasing Employee Engagement