An HR Business Partner for over 20 years and now Head of Wellbeing at FIS, Melissa Anderson brings her passion and experience to the organisation’s wellbeing strategy, and says resiliency and purpose are its key components.
How did wellbeing become a career focus for you?
I’ve worked in HR alongside leaders for most of my career, helping them drive their people agenda — but I didn’t really become entrenched in wellbeing until about four years ago. At the time, I had quite a few employees who were struggling with their wellbeing, and also some family members too. I wanted to educate myself and become an advocate for others, so I became a Mental Health First Aider and trained in crisis intervention. Then when the pandemic hit, I — like many people who thrive on human interaction and being in a busy office — struggled with my own mental health and social isolation. to focus my energies on wellbeing projects, helping the organisation understand that wellbeing is so much more than just an employee benefit offering. The conversation soon shifted when it became obvious the organisation needed someone to do this role full-time, and I felt it was a real opportunity for wellbeing to become part of the culture and to expand upon the traditional definition of it.
What does wellbeing mean to you now?
At FIS, wellbeing is rooted in inspiring our colleagues to be happy, healthy and successful by ensuring that their needs are met — and thereby helping to accelerate our company’s growth with them being able to fully contribute at their best. We currently focus on four key elements of wellbeing — physical, mental, financial and social — but when I think of wellbeing I also think about resiliency. Businesses often say, ‘Well, once this is done, we’ll be in a better state to get behind this change’, but the reality is that change is constant. And because of the technology environment we work in, the pace is only going to get faster. So a fundamental wellbeing question for me is, how do we help people to become more resilient and able to embrace and respond to change more quickly?
How have the needs of employees changed since the pandemic and how can organisations step up?
We’re still continuing to figure out the ‘new ways of working’ and the challenges of the hybrid environment and how we engage with employees regardless of where they’re working. And in that way, making sure that our wellbeing framework allows us to remain agile is important because we want to be able to be proactive around anticipating and responding to the needs of our employees before it becomes a problem for them. Removing the stigma associated with mental health and wellbeing at work also means we have to normalise talking about it at work so that employees can get the support that they need to work at their highest potential. When we’re struggling with how to create healthy boundaries and balancing the struggles we have between work and home life, we’re often not as comfortable as we should be in discussing that. Part of that culture shift is having the training for our leaders. Back in 2020 we asked our leaders to ask employees how they were doing and a lot of them leaned into that and had some great conversations. But some were uncomfortable having that discussion because they didn’t feel equipped to be able to respond if someone was struggling. So ultimately it’s about practising empathetic listening and being comfortable with not always having to have the answers as a leader, but being able to signpost people to the right services if they need additional support.
How has the thinking around wellbeing evolved since the pandemic?
Another conversation that we’re really starting to have off the back of The Great Resignation is around purpose. Personally, a big moment in 2020 was when it became apparent to me that the work that I had been doing for so long was no longer fueling me or really leveraging my strengths. People want purpose-driven work now more than ever before. During the pandemic, many of us had time on our hands to think about what was making us happy both at home and in our professional lives and that’s one of the driving forces behind many people picking up and going elsewhere in their work. But I think the other reason is burnout which is a conversation that we continue to have. From my perspective, there are three people that play a role in that: 1) I have a personal obligation to myself to do things to help ensure I don’t experience burnout, such as healthy eating, exercising and setting boundaries. 2) 3) The organisation plays an important role in creating a culture that allows for these sorts of healthy discussions.
What key things are you looking for in your wellbeing programmes?
We run over 20 campaigns a year so it’s important that we really outline what we’re looking to achieve and measure whether we’ve met those goals. One of our most impactful initiatives is our annual ‘FIS takes a day’, where the entire company takes a day off to focus on mental health. Sometimes it’s hard for people to take vacation or time away because they feel like they might miss getting involved in a project or an opportunity with a client. When the entire organisation is off at the same time, people feel they really can step away and do something healthy for themselves. We have also set up several inclusion networks, including a Women’s Inclusion Network to create a community of women and allies to focus on their unique needs in the workforce as well. Women face specific challenges around mental health in the workplace; they are twice as likely as men to experience depression, anxiety disorder and PTSD and much more likely to battle eating disorders. In addition, in some countries we have added menopause benefits to support those going through that transition and reproductive health benefits to support women in getting pregnant and having a healthy pregnancy.
How can you measure wellbeing to ensure you’re having real impact?
We have a number of ways in which we measure the impact of our programmes but we’re looking to continue to mature that over time, just as we’re maturing our programme, because measuring engagement and participation alone doesn’t necessarily correlate to an impact on the bottom line. This is one of the most challenging conversations that heads of wellbeing are having right now. Colleagues and candidates are looking at what an organisation is doing from a wellbeing perspective more than ever before because they recognise that having mental health benefits and access to high-quality mental health and wellbeing support is a ‘must have’ — not a ‘nice to have’. We have an annual engagement survey for our employees with measures related to wellbeing. These allow us to see over time whether we are trending up or down and we are also looking at building a dashboard to help us measure the impact that our programmes and educational opportunities are having on wellbeing, then using that data to reinvest and reinforce as we go.
How do you support wellbeing cross-culturally for a global company?
I need to have around the world to make sure that our programming and messaging are relevant to everyone. There are a lot of differences when you look at wellbeing around the globe in what’s available and accessible and having understanding around that is important. And some elements of wellbeing are easier to implement globally than others — financial wellbeing for example, has been one that’s been challenging and I’ve had to lean heavily on my regional partners internally to make sure that what we’re providing is relevant to the employees in that specific country. Physical wellbeing is an easier one because although there are some nuances and differences from a nutritional perspective, many core attributes are consistent globally.
What do you personally want to achieve around wellbeing at FIS in five years’ time?
One of the things that was tricky for me early on in this role was balancing out how much time you need to spend on the short-term wins so that employees can see and feel proud that they work for an organisation committed to wellbeing, while also balancing out the need to create a long-term vision and strategy that will stand the test of time. What would make me proud is to continue to build on the strong foundation and executive leadership support we have now because impact and being able to show return on investment does take time. The other thing that’s so important to me is to normalise conversations at work around our mental health so that people are no longer shy about talking about it and leaders feel comfortable in being able to respond. That’s what success looks like to me.
