Security Officer Craig Evans

Boosting the wellbeing of our people

Published on : 5/7/21
  • Sodexo’s Healthcare teams have been on the frontline of the Coronavirus pandemic for the past twelve months. To support Sodexo colleagues with their mental health and wellbeing, in June 2020 we launched a counselling service to help them deal with the pressures of working through the Covid-19.

    Involved since the very early stages of the outbreak, Sodexo Healthcare has been working in partnership with the wider healthcare industry, providing services, skills, and expertise to support the NHS fight the threat posed by the virus.

    Our Healthcare team quickly mobilised to provide bespoke catering, concierge, and security services for the first British Coronavirus evacuees returning from Wuhan, China, within 48 hours. Since then, our colleagues have been working tirelessly at hospitals and Covid-19 testing centres across the UK to deliver essential services and to keep our colleagues, patients, residents, and clients safe.

    The impact of working on the frontline

    As an employer of more than 6,000 people, Sodexo Healthcare recognises the vital importance of supporting mental health and wellbeing in the workplace, especially for those on the frontline who can be faced with extreme challenges every day.

    Sodexo’s on-site HR and Learning & Development (L&D) teams noticed the negative impact Covid-19 was having on the psychological and emotional health of their colleagues during the initial stages of the pandemic.

    Sodexo’s HR and L&D teams are experts in their fields and are acutely aware that having a mental health problem can have far reaching implications for every individual; with the ability to impact relationships, jobs, physical health and much more.

    Supporting key workers

    To help address any mental health concerns our teams may be having, in June 2020 Sodexo Healthcare launched a new face-to-face counselling service. The service was designed to support Sodexo’s frontline key workers, predominantly based at acute hospitals, with the potential additional stress caused by working to stop the spread of the virus.

    The programme supports with current mental health conditions, but also helps to detect any problems early and ideally helps to prevent a mental health problem from occurring – the benefit and impact of this has the potential to be life changing for individuals and their families, but can also help to reduce pressure for increasingly in-demand and stretched health and social care services.

    This new service was initially launched at our Central Manchester contract by an experienced counsellor and psychotherapist who now leads a team of 11 dedicated counsellors, all of whom are available for in person sessions at ten Sodexo Healthcare sites.

    So far, the team has delivered over 800 face-to-face counselling sessions.

    Taking positive action

    The counselling approach was developed following a review of Sodexo’s pandemic response, which took learnings from our global Healthcare business.

    It was designed to respond to the needs of Sodexo's frontline, supervisory and management colleagues and is based on four pillars that deliver:

    1. Presence: Provide proactive, visible and in-person support options for frontline team members working tirelessly and on the frontline during the pandemic to demonstrate Sodexo’s ongoing commitment to improving the wellbeing and quality of life of its team at such a challenging time.
    2. Engagement: Ongoing analysis of anonymised counselling session output helps the team to identify key themes affecting employees’ mental health and wellbeing. This insight equips individual sites with information to develop on-site well-being and mental health initiatives that target specific issues such as dealing with Covid-19 grief, that are emerging as a result of the pandemic. This helps to identify further ways to help the team to cope and build their resilience.
    3. Education: Helping team leaders and managers to spot the signs of problems, as well as, improve their ability to tackle issues among colleagues, clients, and patients. Regular, bitesize, virtual training sessions called ‘Tool-box talks’ are delivered covering a range of topics such as “Listening”, “Questions” , “Signposting” and “Recognising Signs” to better equip them to have supportive, understanding conversations that are constructive and promote wellbeing. 
    4. A variety of support options: It was important to recognise and respond to the different needs of individuals and teams by offering a range of solutions including 1:1 and group counselling services, including pre-bookable and drop-in clinics for anyone experiencing emotional and psychological distress.

    Improving mental wellbeing

    After taking part in the counselling sessions, our teams have generously shared their experience with us. The feedback has been positive, with many explaining how the service is helping to improve their mental health and wellbeing

    Security Officer Craig Evans, Integrative Counsellor Natalie Brayford, Sodexo Business Director Ruth Freeman and University Hospitals of North Midlands (UHNM) Chief Executive Tracy Bullock go into more detail about the service in the following video:

    Please click here if you can’t see the video above

    Since the service’s launch:

    • 1,307 counselling sessions have been delivered;
    • with 419 individuals attending one or more counselling sessions;
    • 731 colleagues attended a toolbox talks on a mental health related topic;
    • and 154 group counselling sessions have been held.

    Stuart Winters, Sodexo Healthcare UK & Ireland CEO, said:

    Our team has consistently performed their jobs at the highest level. We recognise the importance of supporting our healthcare workforce and helping to alleviate some of the pressure of working through a global pandemic.

    At Sodexo, we believe ensuring mental health and wellbeing is core to all that we do, as an employer and as a service provider. We are passionate about enabling people to better understand this as they go about their daily lives, at work and at home.

    By partnering with experienced counsellors and psychotherapists to deliver training in addition to the core counselling service, we are equipping our team with valuable knowledge that can benefit them in their careers and their personal lives and helping to creating positive social impact and healthier, more resilient community.

    Thinking about the future

    Initially launched as a three-month trial, the service has been extended until April 2021 so that more of our people can engage with and benefit from the initiative.

    Sodexo Healthcare has been keen to extend the reach of the new service wherever possible. In response, the counselling sessions have been extended to teams working at 31 Nuffield Health locations. On top of this, more than 8,000 of Sodexo’s Covid-19 testing centre colleagues are also benefitting from mental health awareness team sessions, which are facilitated remotely by the team of counsellors.

    This counselling service is exclusively available to Sodexo Healthcare colleagues and forms part of a wider range of mental health and wellbeing tools available to all Sodexo colleagues, including Talk.

    Talk is Sodexo’s employee assistance programme, which offers benefits including access to a professional, independent telephone line for any issues and an online wellbeing media zone, offering help and advice on hundreds of topics. The variety of tools available to Sodexo employees provides an all-round employee wellbeing solution that recognises that we are all individuals and different situations require different levels of support.

    If you'd like to know more about Sodexo's services and what we can do to benefit your organisation, please click here to complete an enquiry form.