BECBC Sector Groups and Organisational Health for Performance

I’ve been attending (and enjoying) BECBC sector group meetings since 2011 when I took a role in external Business Development (my company, NIS has been attending for as long as I can remember).

When I moved to a new role in People Development in 2022, I did not necessarily expect to continue this trend but that was until my long time mentor and now ex boss (sad face emoji), Gill Marsden told me about a new group, Organisational Health for Performance which was starting up.

I was intrigued and was not disappointed with the taster sessions that were presented, with a heavy bias on an underlying theme of wellbeing and mental health.

Although NIS have been on a journey of wellbeing; with champions, regular newsletters, a ‘green’ room etc etc over the past 10 years, it’s not previously been a topic I have had much involvement with. In my new role however, I had a key business objective (set by Gill) to relaunch our wellbeing programme with new Mental Health First Aiders therefore my personal involvement has sky rocketed. The coincidence of the start of the BECBC Organisational Health for Performance group with our MHFA relaunch has greatly helped my own journey and hopefully that of the business.

Fast forward to my third attendance at one of these meetings (unfortunately missed one due to other commitments) and I was weighing up the day before whether to attend or not (given it is a few hours out of my day and there is always a list of other actions to pursue).

What decided it for me was that I knew that taking that time out with the group would be both beneficial for my mental health as well as supporting the mental health of our employees through what I could learn and bring back.

I’ve always found that coming to BECBC gives me that joy of networking with people outside my day to day work life and I take away at least one golden nugget of information that is useful for the business.

That was certainly the outcome from the latest meeting at the fantastic setting of the Rosehill Theatre in Whitehaven, where I chatted with both existing and new members and listened to the highly engaging Mark and Zoe on the topic of Biological Wellbeing.

Then back into my work place the next day with my Mental Health First Aid colleagues, I was surprised to learn that some were (and some weren’t) aware of ‘Cortisol’ and ‘box breathing’ which were two of my key take aways.

Anyways, if you’re reading this blog, I would implore you to look up and learn more about these topics and others that Mark and Zoe and their company adaptandevolve can tell you about…as the strap line goes this could well save your life sometime!