By Hazel Bosworth, Senior Communications and Marketing Manager, North Northamptonshire Council
My name’s Hazel, and I’m a self-confessed wellbeing addict. Every day I pick a few items from a whiteboard menu of ‘Things to Keep Me above the Line’ – usually involving yoga or a run, a bit of journalling and the occasional 15 minutes of pretending I can meditate. I also listen to wellbeing podcasts that invariably give me more ideas for this menu (recommend Feel Better, Live More by Dr Rangan Chatterjee).
That said, I find it difficult to carry this approach over to the comms workplace with its barrage of demands, change, short deadlines and, at times, challenging people. So, you can imagine how much I was looking forward to the Wellbeing and Resilience for Leaders masterclass with Dr Hayley Lewis. She skilfully connected wellbeing to leadership in comms, reminding us of our role in creating environments where people can thrive.
Wellbeing at work
I was struck by the statistic that stress is the UK’s biggest killer in the workplace, a stark reminder of why wellbeing matters.
The CIPD (2025) outline what individuals need in their roles to build a strong foundation for wellbeing:
- Realistic workload
- Pressure just right – stretch not stress
- Good relationship with colleagues
- Energised not exhausted by work
- Sufficient support from line manager
The ‘stretch not stress’ point stood out most to me as I operate best in that balanced space between the two.
Hayley led us through a group exercise in which we weighed up the job demands we face versus the resources we have in place to offset them. What stood out was that although the Future Leaders cohort have different roles in different organisations across the country, we all face similar issues in balancing demands and resources. One resource I feel I lack is time, and since the session, I’ve been applying a suggestion proposed by Hayley which is to carve out 15 minutes each day to think and make sense of things. I hope that doing this will help me to respond rather than react to demands.
Resilience
After a coffee break (a simple real-life nod to our wellbeing), we looked at the conditions needed to be able to thrive at work. From the list shared by Hayley, what stood out to me was the need to have a clear sense that work has purpose and meaning. This is something that underpins my own motivation and I imagine is common to many working in local government comms.
We also need resilience. Rather than pushing through in the name of (toxic) resilience, we need to build six pillars (Roberts, 2022), i.e. confidence, adaptability, positivity, perspective, mastery and stamina. I realise my resilience relies on adaptability and perspective but that I neglect confidence at times, possibly due to my career pivot and late arrival into working in comms.
Hayley shared the analogy that ‘resilience is like a reservoir’, and it’s our responsibility to keep our own reservoirs topped up. After all:
‘We cannot expect to create sustainable, healthy environments for others if we have no idea how to do it for ourselves’ (Doyle, 2025)
This quotation challenged me to think about my responsibility to my team, and how I can encourage and enable them to fill their own reservoirs.
Stress and recovery
When work gets all consuming, I’ll be looking back at Hayley’s list of essentials for recovery: psychological detachment (intentionally switching off), relaxation, mastery (learning something new) and control. For me, that means setting boundaries such as not having work emails on my phone and not logging on out of hours.
The SPICES (Social, Physical, Intellectual, Creativity, Emotional and Spiritual) approach to wellbeing gave me a fun way to colour code the wellbeing activities on my whiteboard. The idea is you pick what is needed in the moment. Maybe you’re in need of a mild, calming spice (such as taking a nap or listening to music – Radio 3 Unwind is great for this), or something hotter like an energising workout.
Throughout the session we explored ideas from Art Cure (Fancourt, 2026), which suggests activities such as creative writing, craft, choirs and listening to audiobooks and music, should be the new ‘five a day’. I enjoyed putting this into practice with the solo reflective writing exercise to round off the session.
I’ll leave you with this quotation from the book, and hope you can find ways today to top up your reservoir:
‘A bit like an elastic band, when we’re flourishing, we’re able to spring back into shape – mentally and physically – when we face a challenge’.
References
CIPD (2025) Good Work Index. Available at: https://www.cipd.org/uk/knowledge/reports/goodwork/#health-and-wellbeing
Doyle, N (2025) Learning from Neurodivergent Leaders. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Fancourt, D (2026) Art Cure. Penguin.
Roberts, J (2022) Mindset Matters. Kogan Page.