The Organizational Development team of Schindler Elevator Corporation, USA partnered with Motion Infusion CEO Laura Putnam, a workplace wellness practitioner and educator, to create dynamic programs for Schindler.
The program experiences, called "Odysseys", emphasize how wellness contributes to employee engagement and the sustainable success of organizations:
The Leadership Odyssey – how to start an employee well-being movement within a company. Within Schindler Elevator Corporation, Julie Shipley, Manager of General Training, started a bottom-up approach with a leadership training rising awareness within Schindler managers. The training features personal well-being experiences such as Yoga, well-being self-assessments, and culture change training. Its impacts on the importance of personal wellbeing for effective leadership are spreading through the whole organization and are actually changing leadership behaviour.
The Safety Odyssey – how to link safety with health and well-being. Gallup studies have found that companies with high employee engagement experience 48% fewer safety incidents than organizations with low employee engagement. Julie Shipley and Michael Yurchuk, Director of Organization Development, created a workshop specifically tailored to the Health and Safety team within Schindler Elevator Corporation, placing special emphasis on how wellness and energy will keep both themselves and all employees safe while performing their work.
The HR Odyssey – every team needs to have an understanding for how to take care of themselves and foster wellbeing within others, Human Resources (HR) holds a unique position within an organization with respect to their interest to the general wellbeing of an employee population. Julie Shipley is designing this program with the central message that it “starts with you” and only then can you proliferate the message of wellness among others within the organization.
A new book from Laura Putnam highlights Schindler’s Odyssey programs as case studies for building an innovative wellness culture.*
Schindler Elevator Corporation will continue to integrate workplace wellness into their daily business to strengthen employee engagement and health even further.
At Schindler, we know – skill, expertise and professionalism of our employees determine Schindler’s success in the marketplace. So it’s vital for us to recruit and retain the right people, people who share our values and goals. We treat all our employees with respect and offer them a stimulating working environment where they can thrive. That’s why we introduced the Schindler “global people strategy” to guide our managers and HR professionals in areas like employee health and safety, people development, employment and motivation, work-life balance and fair compensation.
*Putnam, Laura, Workplace Wellness that Works: 10 Steps to Infuse Well-Being & Vitality into Any Organization, New Jersey, 2015