CHL Coalition Launches Employee Experts Conversation Series

Driving actions in support of employee wellbeing is a key part of the Consumer Goods Forum (CGF) Collaboration for Healthier Lives (CHL) Coalition’s leadership agenda. The Coalition works towards looking into ways to make progress within the industry to collectively help employees around the world pursue healthier lifestyles. As part of these efforts, the CHL Coalition launched an Employee Experts Conversation Series for HR professionals to share learnings on employee wellbeing, along with practical steps to implement in the workplace. While there is no holy grail to wellbeing, the series was created to try improve the impact and effectiveness of the Coalition’s actions.

The series kicked off on 29 January 2021 with a first instalment on Prioritising Employee Health in Leadership Training, hosted by the CGF’s CHL Director, Sharon Bligh. As covid-19 has forced the consumer goods industry and beyond to rethink the way we work, HR professionals have had to implement policies and strategies to mitigate the impact of the crisis on their employees.

During the interactive session, Danone’s Global Safety, Health and Working Conditions Director, Bruno Vercken, delved into leadership and wellbeing at work, and shared how Covid helped the company achieve in 4 months what they hadn’t achieved in 4 years. He described how the drivers of wellbeing at work were heavily impacted by Covid and presented a strategy on how to address these critical challenges. Questions surrounding company responsibility when it comes to employee health and wellbeing were explored, and he concluded by highlighting leadership’s responsibility to rescue, monitor and equip their employees in the midst of the pandemic.

Rocío Flores Torres, Global Wellness Manager at Grupo Bimbo, and Joanna D. Gomes, Manager, Health and Wellness Programs at Bimbo Canada, shared their company’s wellness journey as they recognise the workplace as a central environment for promoting a culture of self-care. In doing so, they highlighted their company’s objectives to ensure healthy work environments and to facilitate self-management of healthy lifestyles for their employees. They went on to showcase their company’s most common global actions in addressing employee mental health during the pandemic, and spotlighted Canada to present their Healthy Minds People Leader Training.

As Covid-19 has thrust employee health and wellness to the forefront, and companies continuously endeavour to safeguard the physical and mental wellbeing of their staff, the CHL Coalition looks forward to more Employee Experts Conversation Series sessions to help drive positive change.

Watch the full conversation session and keep an eye out on the CGF events calendar for upcoming session dates.