National Work Life Week – A focus on wellbeing at work

Looking after our staff and promoting wellbeing in the workplace has always been high up on our list of priorities but this year has been like no other. Since it began in March, the Covid-19 crisis has heightened our commitment to ensure a safe, secure and positive working environment for our staff and we have done our best to embrace the challenge.

Flexible and Remote Working

Now, more than ever, we understand that many staff have needed the flexibility to adapt their working hours or working environment. Since the start of lockdown, we’ve made sure that regular communications have been held with each member of staff to establish what is required for each individual and as a result, many of our staff have been working remotely either part-time or full-time.

The Introduction of the ‘HE Healthy Me’ Wellbeing Hub

With the business continuing to function effectively throughout the pandemic, it would have been easy to have just got on with ‘the day job’ and not to focus on any business-related projects that the firm had previously prioritised.

However, as soon as we had dealt with the immediate, practical considerations of remote working and furlough, we were keen to shift our focus to the ongoing wellbeing of all of our staff.  At this point, we had no idea how long lockdown would last so we wanted to introduce some measures to keep an eye out for our colleagues and make sure they were keeping themselves well through these difficult and uncertain times. We planned and rolled out an internal wellbeing hub called HE Healthy Me.

The hub allowed us to address some of the issues that were causing staff anxiety, one of which was the loss of social interaction with their colleagues. It is easy to forget that as well as business relationships, many friendships are formed within the working environment and for now, they are becoming fractured, as staff can no longer enjoy the usual level of interaction with colleagues.

The culture of Harding Evans is very much about working hard but also having fun together and sharing in our successes.  We use the hub to host virtual quizzes, raffles, film nights with reviews written by staff and other types of non-work related activities, all designed to keep up a sense of fun and belonging in our virtual workspace.

It has also allowed us to keep our staff informed about various developments across the business.  Whether it is information specifically related to our Covid-19 Business Continuity Plan or developments within the business generally, the hub allows us to keep in touch with staff and keep the information flowing.

Free flu jabs for staff

For the last couple of years we have also rolled out free flu vaccinations to our workforce.  Looking after the health of our staff is important to us and something we will continue to do as we face the ongoing challenges of this pandemic.

Rewarding staff through HE Happy Days

Our HE Happy Days initiative has now been running for several years. As part of this scheme, we have put on internal events, give out treats on special occasions and put on free raffles for staff every couple of months. During the current crisis, these activities have been restricted to virtual events but we are determined to resurrect the full calendar of activities as soon as we are able to.

Harding Evans Solicitors is a well established regional law firm which delivers a specialist range of legal services to commercial and private clients. We have over 110 staff including 10 partners and 70 fee earners.

Originally based in Newport, the firm has expanded significantly in recent years and now have an office in Cardiff.  We have won a number of awards over the years including the Award for Outstanding Achievement and Business of the Year at the high profile South Wales Chamber Business Awards and Law Firm of the Year at the prestigious Welsh Law Awards where Partner Ken Thomas was named Lawyer of the Year.

We hold Specialist Help Quality Marks for 10 of our services and are one of only a few firms in Wales to hold and maintain such a high number of Quality Marks.