wellbeing for managers

A guide developed to support you in creating an inclusive and supportive working environment for colleagues with disabilities or long-term health conditions.

This guidance outlines your responsibilities under the Equality Act 2010 and provides practical advice on:

• Recognising when a colleague may need support
• Responding to adjustment requests with empathy and timeliness
• Collaborating with HR and Occupational Health
• Assessing and implementing reasonable adjustments
• Reviewing and documenting agreed actions

It also includes examples of adjustments across recruitment, communication, work patterns, and the physical environment, as well as links to further resources and support.

This managers’ guide is designed to help you prepare for a wellbeing conversation with a member of your team. It includes things to think about ahead of the meeting, ideas for what you would like the meeting to achieve and advice about how to proceed if the conversation doesn’t go as expected. 

Knowing what support is available and how to access it is helpful when supporting members of your team. Here are some key self-help resources:

• Wellbeing Action Plan
• Spectrum EAP and digital platform. 

  For further information about Spectrum, please take a look at this employee guide to their employee assistance service, EAP Referral flowchart, Referral Form and FAQs

• Coaching
• Mentoring
• Wellbeing webpages

If you have any questions, please get in touch with us at POD@leedsbeckett.ac.uk

There may be times when you need to refer a team member to access further specialist support. The following services are available to help:

• Occupational Health - Our Occupational Health team are available for you to refer members of your team to seek support for medical conditions that may be affecting them at work. All of our Occupational Health practitioners are medically qualified and able to work with the individual to assess their needs before providing  recommendations for appropriate support such as reasonable adjustments or adaptive equipment. To refer a member of your team, please complete the following referral form
• Employee Relations - Your Employee Relations representative is available to provide you with HR advice about how to handle individual situations in line with university policy and employment law
• Spectrum - Our employee assistance programme is available for any workplace wellbeing queries. If you have a management question that you would like some external, impartial advice on-, the EAP could help. Just contact them on 0808 196 2016. If a member of your team needs support from Spectrum but feels unable to contact them; with their consent, you can complete the following online referral form and a member of the Spectrum Team will contact the individual directly

• People and Organisational Development - The People and Organisational Development Team is available to provide advice and support on possible development opportunities for your team. Whether you would like a bespoke training session for all colleagues in your team, or are interested in finding out what support is available for individual team members, get in touch with us at pod@leedsbeckett.ac.uk
  

   

Supporting the wellbeing of your team is an ongoing, year-round process. By encouraging wellbeing conversations through all traditional management processes this can help. You could start with using the wellbeing conversations guide to build wellbeing check ins into your regular 1-2-1s; before continuing these conversations in your annual PDR conversations with your team members. All these conversations will help you to gain a better understanding of the welfare and stressors of the team, and help with the ongoing completion of the School/Service Wellbeing Assessment.