In the latest episode of the Collaboration for Healthier Lives (CHL) Employee Experts Conversation Series, CHL Director Sharon Bligh was joined by CGF member Julia Schwoerer, VP of Marketing, Mulino Bianco, Barilla Group, and Renee Moorefield, CEO, and Dianne Culhane, Brand Strategist & Executive Wellbeing Coach, at Wisdom Works Group.

As part of the CHL Coalition’s leadership agenda, driving actions to support employee health and wellbeing is key, and the Coalition continuously works towards looking into ways to drive industry progress to collectively help employees around the world pursue healthier lifestyles. Mental health is a critical part people’s overall wellbeing, and the CHL Coalition’s work highlights the role that the workplace has to support employees in dealing with mental health issues.

Today’s session focused on Julia’s work at Barilla and dove into the company’s transformational journey to evolve the self, team and brand through the art & science of wellbeing, a journey that was made more challenging by the COVID pandemic. 

And, as part of the work to co-create this journey, Julia worked with Renee and Dianne, who following Julia’s introduction into the brand and challenges brought about by COVID-19, introduced how their company helped support Barilla.

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(Science-backed wellbeing framework)

They said it was important for employees to engage with each other and for consumers to engage with the brand, so the journey started with the team first. To help succeed, they also worked on a science-backed framework to help raise awareness and drive positive change in ourselves and the brand. This was a five-month journey that started with the group kick-off in November 2020 and ended with a group appreciation for the progress made for “me, team and brand” in March 2021.

Some of the highlighted outcomes of the journey were to understand the dimensions of wellbeing to grow individually; use wellbeing principles and practices to build a cohesive team; and create a wellbeing manifesto for the Mulino Bianco brand

As part of the reflection on this journey, 82% of employees who took the journey agreed it was a great exercise. Barilla is setting up an internal ThinkTank to take the journey further.  Watch the video below to learn more.