Wellbeing & teamwork

Cultivating an Inclusive and Supportive Culture

An organisation’s culture is the foundation for all wellbeing and teamwork initiatives.

Psychological safety and inclusion

Psychological safety is paramount, especially in emotionally taxing roles in our sector. It means creating an environment where people feel safe to speak up, admit mistakes, ask for help, and challenge the status quo without fear of negative repercussions. This is the bedrock of strong teamwork.

To achieve this:

• Leadership must model vulnerability and active listening.
• Encourage open dialogue through regular, non-judgmental check-ins that focus on the individual, not just tasks (“How are you really doing?”).
• Demonstrate that the organisation – at all levels – values the contributions of all team members, regardless of their role (paid or volunteer), background, or location. Use inclusive language, offer flexibility to accommodate diverse needs (e.g., religious holidays, caring responsibilities, different styles of processing information), and actively seek diverse perspectives and a range of lived experience to inform decision-making.
• Provide the platform for open conversations about colleagues’ communication preferences, trigger points and how they can bring their whole selves to work. The ‘Manual of Me’ is one example of this. This process is not guaranteeing that everyone will be able to operate in their ideal conditions at all times. As organisations successfully embrace diversity, it might become even more difficult for everyone to communicate with each other in the recipient’s preferred style every time. It might uncover ways the organisation can better meet the needs of its team members and it is about having an ongoing dialogue about how everyone works differently and to learn more about each other, so that working collaboratively and supportively becomes the default.

Although created in response to Covid-19, the King’s Fund interview with Amy Edmondson Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School is a good overview of the importance of creating a culture of psychological safety at work

Seamless integration of staff and volunteers

For organisations relying on a mixed workforce, breaking down the barriers between paid staff and volunteers is critical for cohesive teamwork.

• Ensure parity of respect and information: where possible, volunteers should have access to relevant training, team meetings, and appreciation efforts, mirroring those offered to staff.
• Define clear roles and responsibilities: ambiguity is a major source of stress. Clear role descriptions and transparent decision-making processes help everyone, particularly volunteers and remote workers, understand their value and contribution.

Seamless integration of staff and volunteers

For organisations relying on a mixed workforce, breaking down the barriers between paid staff and volunteers is critical for cohesive teamwork.

• Define clear roles and responsibilities: ambiguity is a major source of stress. Clear role descriptions and transparent decision-making processes help everyone, particularly volunteers and remote workers, understand their value and contribution.
• Ensure parity of respect and information: where possible, volunteers should have access to relevant training, team meetings, and appreciation efforts, mirroring those offered to staff.

Practical Benefits and Work Structure

While community energy organisation budgets are often tight, creative use of benefits and structural support can significantly boost wellbeing.

Flexible and hybrid working

For many VCSE organisations, flexible and hybrid working were the norm even before the pandemic made the shift away from traditional office structures widespread. For other organisations, the shift happened in response to external factors, rather than as an intentional choice, so it is important to reflect on whether changes could be made to make flexible and hybrid working arrangements more beneficial for staff and volunteers. Flexible working can be a great practical benefit, allowing team members to balance work and home life and unlock new organisational efficiencies and connections, if done mindfully. 

• Be intentional about how remote work happens – what structures, policies and strategies you can put in place to make sure everyone feels included and able to do their best.
• Adopt transparent and well-considered flexible working policies: empowering individuals to manage their hours (where practical) and location (hybrid or fully remote) respects their personal lives and circumstances, a huge factor in wellbeing and staff retention. This is particularly important for those balancing work with caring roles but also can be helpful for individuals to have opportunities for self care, supporting good mental health.
• Bridge the remote/office divide: if your organisation has an office or main ‘base’ with remote workers, consider ways of fostering team cohesion in hybrid environments, like:
  • Using video conferencing for meetings to ensure all voices are heard, regardless of location.
  • Scheduled ‘social’ time, both in-person and virtual, to fill the “water-cooler chat” void and build personal connections.
  • Providing equitable access to resources and technology for all team members. In particular, be conscious if the leadership team has a particular bias one way or the other (towards office or towards remote) and consider team members in all situations when making decisions and updating policies and systems.

Non-Financial Benefits

Since financial benefits may be limited, focus on non-financial perks:

Recognition and appreciation: Implement formal and informal systems to acknowledge efforts and impact for both staff and volunteers. A feeling of purpose and being valued is a key driver in our sector.

Generous annual leave and time off: Encourage and mandate the use of annual leave for paid staff and ensure volunteers take meaningful breaks. Climate anxiety and the emotional and physical toll of community driven work can lead to high burnout, so promoting rest is a direct wellbeing intervention. It can be difficult for individuals in small teams to prioritise time off since so much needs to get done, but the alternative is lower productivity and the risk of longer stretches of time off for ill-health.

Learning and development: Offer accessible, and varied training, including professional development and training specific to community development and energy systems. Training doesn’t have to be expensive courses; shadowing, mentoring, reverse mentoring, attending events, short study breaks and peer-to-peer networking are all ways to develop new skills and insight that may not require a financial outlay. In terms of courses and training that do require payment, there may be bursaries or small grant programmes to cover expenses.

Prioritising Mental and Physical Health

Dedicated support for health is not a luxury, but a necessity in a high-demand sector.

Mental Health Support

• Invest in accessible support: provide confidential support services if your budgets allow. This could be an Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) which may be part of an HR outsourcing service, if you use one, and can often be extended to volunteers. If an EAP is not possible, you can signpost to free, relevant external services like Mind.
• Train Mental Health First Aiders (MHFAs) or Champions: having dedicated, trained individuals who can recognise the signs of poor mental health and signpost to professional help is invaluable. Mental Health First Aid England has free resources to support healthy workplaces, and a variety of training options ranging from free to full certification.
• Promote work-life balance: actively discourage ‘presenteeism’ and overload. Model healthy boundaries from the top down, encouraging people to take breaks, log off on time, and only check emails out of hours when they actively choose to as part of their flexible working arrangements, not because of expectation or an ‘overwork’ culture.

Physical Health and Stress Management

• Ergonomic and safe environments: ensure that both office-based and remote workers have the necessary equipment and guidance to work safely and comfortably. For remote staff, this may mean providing a stipend, equipment check or regular audits.
• Encourage movement: promote physical activities, whether through in-office wellness challenges, encouraging walking meetings, providing information on local fitness opportunities or sharing social stories about what kind of physical activities colleagues enjoy.
• Stress reduction: implement simple measures like mandatory breaks, clear project boundaries, and regular supervision to actively manage workload stress. A focus on outcomes over hours is especially helpful for remote and flexible workers, reducing the pressure to be constantly visible or spending large amounts of time and mental bandwidth on lower priority activities.