Digital Handbook

Line managers significantly impact employee wellbeing, engagement, and overall workplace health through their behaviour and communication. While supportive managers can foster a positive environment, many struggle due to a lack of skills, knowledge, or self-awareness, often leading to employee stress. Leading by example and maintaining open, clear communication are key to reducing stress and boosting morale. To enhance wellbeing across the organisation, it's essential to invest in training and developing line managers’ people-management capabilities.

Research shows our relationships with our line managers is the top determinant of workplace wellbeing, so it’s really important that line managers should be having regular wellbeing conversations with their team members, ideally as part of normal business. Wellbeing conversations are important for supporting staff by actively listening and acknowledging their needs, without offering solutions or advice, and should be held regularly, at least once a year, to foster open communication.

Peer support is a powerful and accessible tool for improving workplace wellbeing. Peer support in the workplace refers to employees offering mutual support to one another in a shared, informal space. It involves individuals using their own lived experiences to help colleagues who may be facing similar challenges.