Lendlease's leadership leads by example by putting mental health and wellbeing first

In an interview with HROnline, Head of People & Culture, Asia Vicki Ng shares on Lendlease's way of building a culture of care across Asia.

Driving mental wellbeing isn't just HR's responsibility at Lendlease. The entire leadership team drives it, for instance, by getting certified as mental health first aiders. Vicki Ng, Head of People & Culture, Asia, Lendlease (pictured above), shares more on this and:

• How employees themselves get certified in mental health first aid.
• Shaping the way employees interact through upskilling in EI and empathetic listening.
• How she as a leader starts with prioritising her own mental health and wellbeing each day.

Q Tell us about Lendlease’s workplace wellbeing policies. What are some interesting programmes in place to ensure the safety and health of employees?

Looking after the physical and mental health of our employees is a significant part of Lendlease’s culture. Putting our people’s wellbeing first has been deeply ingrained into our four-pillared Health and Wellbeing Framework, which entails supporting healthier minds, developing healthier bodies, building healthier places, and creating healthier cultures.

As a result of the ongoing pandemic, the last 18 months or so have taken a toll on everyone - both physically and mentally. It has never been more important to remind our employees that they are not alone. As an employer, it is our responsibility to not only ensure the physical, but also the mental wellbeing of our employees. We want to show them that we are here for them through their ups and downs and believe in helping them reach their potential.

One such example of putting our employees first is through the introduction of our industry-leading “wellbeing leave”, first rolled out in 2015.

Offered to all employees one day every four months to attend to their health and wellbeing-related needs, wellbeing leave provides employees the opportunity to take the time out to focus on their wellbeing rather than use sick leave or annual leave.

We are also proud to share that we are one of the first in the industry to provide mental wellness coverage for employees and their dependents in Singapore and Malaysia.

In addition, we collaborate with various organisations like the Workplace Safety & Health (WSH) Council, Befrienders Malaysia, Changi General Hospital (TRACS), Mental Health First Aid, and R U OK? to deliver effective mental health programmes to our employees. We also strongly encourage all to participate in initiatives like World Mental Health Day to gain a better appreciation of why mental health is important to leading happy, fulfilling lives in and out of work.

To help our employees and managers recognise stressors and address them, we stepped up the series of talks and Masterclasses in collaboration with WSH Council, covering topics like Self-Care@Work, Stress Management, and Low Battery Alert, which are very relevant at this point in time.

Our collaboration with providers like Headspace, Sleepfit and Uprise helps us empower employees to take care of their wellbeing. We provide all employees with subscriptions to these app-based programmes where they can use it at their own time, personalised to their needs.

While some programmes take a top-down approach, we have lateral support programmes where more than 1,150 of our employees globally received training in mental health first aid, with over 800 trained under the Friend in Need (FiN) programme. Getting our employees to pick up mental health first aid skills allows them to care not only for themselves and colleagues, but also be a pillar of support for their family and friends. The FiN programme goes a long way in helping us embed the culture of care at Lendlease.

Q Did you face any challenges in implementation? How did you overcome them?

With any new initiative, there are bound to be certain challenges. In the planning stage and in communicating initiatives, we take into account perspectives of all our stakeholders. This puts into context and ensures relevance of our initiatives. The widespread impact of the pandemic has led to a growing number of conversations in the media about the importance of mental wellbeing. This has made it easier for Lendlease to broach these topics with stakeholders.

When developing our wellbeing programmes for employees, we took the time to understand what our employees were going through and holistically sought out the best methods to improve their wellbeing, be it with their deliverables or by providing an environment for our employees to thrive.

It is important to caveat that employee wellbeing needs are fluid, and as such, we as an organisation need to actively listen and adapt our programmes to meet these needs.

To do that, we intentionally create opportunities for employees to voice their needs and we talk openly about wellbeing at our employee town halls and leadership meetings.

Getting our own leadership team certified as mental health first aiders also enable our leaders to be more sensitive towards the mental wellness of the team and to look out for signs when someone needs help.

This helped us give employees the assurance that we are serious about their wellbeing.

Q What has the employee response been like, and overall, how have these initiatives boosted both employee engagement and productivity?

Since the launch of the wellbeing programmes and initiatives, reception has been encouraging. We see strong attendance at events and subscriptions to programmes across the Asia workforce, employees and leaders alike. Our leaders’ attendance and sharing of their own wellbeing challenges helped employees realise that they are not alone in their challenges with working from home or home-based learning with their kids.

What struck me the most was feedback from an employee who said, "It's very inspiring and motivating to know that we are not alone when we are working from home". This gives us the comfort that we are hitting the right notes in caring for our employees.

From 2020, Lendlease supported employees impacted by COVID with the Lendlease Hardship & Wellbeing Fund, which has since disbursed around A$1m. In 2021, we utilised the Fund to recognise our frontline and customer facing workers who went to great lengths to support our customers and clients during the pandemic. Through this Fund, we supported over 400 employees and families in Asia.

Our longstanding commitment to ensuring employee health and wellbeing has been recognised within our industry. Since 2017, we were certified as a Global Healthy Workplace, a certification that remains valid till 2022.

The social return of investment (SROI) analysis conducted on our Health & Wellbeing Framework in 2017 showed a positive and healthy ratio, demonstrating that our programmes improved our employee’s health and wellbeing, engagement and retention rates. We are in the midst of our 2021 SROI exercise and are confident that we have progressed since 2017.

Q The workplace is where the majority of adults spend most of their time, thus a positive company culture is vital in ensuring productivity and job satisfaction. How is this being promoted at Lendlease?

Lendlease is a place where we believe in equipping our employees with the environment and skillsets that are needed to make a difference. Our diversity & inclusion (D&I) initiatives and learning & development programmes aim to ensure that everyone gains a sense of belonging and can thrive in the future of work.

Our D&I strategy focuses on creating an inclusive workplace. As shared by Justin Gabbani, CEO Asia of Lendlease at a recent employee forum, “What excites me when I come to work is not just working on exciting projects but being part of the family where all our voices are valued. That allows us to bring our best selves to the workplace”.

As such, from hiring through to career development and progression, we ensure that talented people can join our business and fairly access opportunities. An example is where we strive for 50