Beta This is a new service – your feedback will help us to improve it.

Increasing wellbeing with workplace initiatives

Tools to improve wellbeing in the workplace, including supporting staff experiencing trauma.

Wellbeing

These tools are for:

  • leaders
  • managers
  • supervisors in social care

Adopt a holistic approach when planning wellbeing interventions at organisational and individual levels. This should consider different aspects of wellbeing, including collective and social wellbeing, personal values and principles, and individual growth.

Check that you have thought about the difference your workplace initiative will make, and how you will measure this. 

Taking a holistic approach to wellbeing

This perspective offers a more inclusive and nuanced understanding of wellbeing, addressing multiple factors contributing to a healthy workplace environment. Consider how well your organisation currently includes each factor in the following areas.

The following section sets out how you could improve wellbeing through workplace initiatives.

Health and wellbeing 

 You could think about:

  • physical health - health promotion, occupational health support, and disability management 
  • physical safety - safe working practices, equipment, and training 
  • mental health - stress management, risk assessments, conflict resolution training, and mental health management

Work demands and rewards

You could think about:

  • work environment - cultivating an open and inclusive culture 
  • line management - training and people management policies 
  • work demands - job design, role quality and working hours 
  • autonomy - providing opportunities for control and encouraging innovation 
  • change management - effective communication and involvement in the change process 
  • pay and reward - ensuring fairness and transparency 

Values and principles

You could think about:

  • leadership - clear mission and objectives and an evidence-informed health and wellbeing strategy 
  • ethical standards - promoting dignity and respect at work 
  • diversity - encouraging inclusion and valuing difference 

Collective and social issues

You could think about:

  • employee voice - communication and involvement strategies
  • positive relationships - management style and effective team working 

Personal growth issues

You could think about:

  • career development - offering mentoring, coaching and performance management
  • emotional growth - encouraging positive relationships, supervision and resilience
  • lifelong learning - providing access to personal development opportunities and career reviews 
  • creativity - encouraging an open and collaborative culture and conducting innovation workshops 

Managing trauma and ‘moral injury’

Moral injury is when something happens that conflicts with someone's deeply held values, causing psychological and emotional strain. For example, a social worker advocating for a child's safety may experience internal conflict if legal or systemic constraints return the child to a potentially unsafe environment.

Factors such as organisational culture, workload, and societal shifts can intensify moral distress, as seen during the Covid pandemic.

Social workers are at risk of trauma due to the emotional demands of their job. They deal with traumatic events directly and can also experience secondary trauma and stress.

Understanding who is at risk of experiencing trauma

Heavy workloads, understaffing, limited resources, and red tape can increase trauma for social workers. Social workers may experience ‘primary trauma’ when they are directly impacted by a traumatic event, such as being subjected to violence or anger as part of their practice. Social workers are often exposed to secondary trauma, experienced when hearing about the trauma that others have experienced.

To reduce trauma risks, organisations should consider:

  • supporting trauma-informed practices 
  • creating learning and support opportunities 
  • promoting and encouraging self-care

 Factors that increase trauma risk in social work include: 

  • hearing traumatic stories from people accessing services, especially involving abuse or violence 
  • managing difficult or resistant individuals, leading to intense emotional strain 
  • responding to crisis situations like emergencies and interventions 
  • limited training in trauma-informed practices, leaving staff less prepared for emotional challenges 
  • identifying too closely with people accessing services, making it harder to maintain professional boundaries 
  • lacking support, such as reflective supervision 

Supporting social workers experiencing the impact of trauma

A supportive, aware environment boosts both staff wellbeing and effective support for service users.

Employers should recognise how global events can impact employees, especially those from minority groups.

Providing resources, support, and open discussions can help staff manage these stresses and build a caring workplace.

Community Care offers a guide on handling secondary trauma, covering risk factors, impacts, and management strategies.

Points to consider include:

  • providing visible, approachable leaders who promote a culture of learning and self-care 
  • offering supportive, non-judgemental supervision that allows time for debriefing after particularly traumatic events 
  • making sure managers, support staff, and practitioners understand secondary trauma and know where to find help 
  • varying caseloads and offering opportunities for a diverse range of tasks to enrich roles and reduce risk of monotony 
  • introducing peer mentoring to encourage learning and support 

You should ensure everyone knows where to access further support, such as occupational health or counsellors. It is important to offer access to emotional support for staff working remotely.

You can help provide emotional support by: 

  • recognising that responses to trauma can build over time and vary by individual 
  • providing support for staff indirectly affected by traumatic events 
  • helping staff see the bigger picture by explaining decisions around resources, policies, and deadlines 

Taking a pro-active approach to moral injury

Supporting social workers to address moral injury involves helping them navigate ethical challenges, make principled decisions, and advocate for supportive organisational change.

Providing accessible psychological support, encouraging informal peer and manager support can help social workers, especially those early in their careers.

You could think about:

  • preparing individuals for the moral challenges of social care work through open discussions and realistic learning opportunities by using scenarios involving moral dilemmas 
  • assisting practitioners in improving self-awareness and understanding the importance of adopting a broader perspective after facing morally challenging situations. This is so practitioners understand that sometimes undesirable outcomes may occur
  • promoting a culture where practitioners regularly discuss events that could cause moral injury 
  • encouraging practitioners to define their personal moral compass by reflecting on ethical responses to challenging situations and establishing a personal code of ethics 
  • developing coping skills, such as mindfulness, could enhance mental clarity as self-regulation skills can disrupt negative thinking patterns 

Using strengths-based solutions

Strengths-based approaches should concentrate on the natural strengths and resilience of individuals and communities, emphasising existing resources and skills rather than solely looking at problems. Read more on building trauma-informed organisations and strengths-based support.

For more information on moral injury and strategies for its prevention refer to the report Moral distress and moral injury: Recognising and tackling it for UK doctors.

Although written for doctors, the recommendations are relevant to those working in social care.

Enhancing managers’ competencies in supporting wellbeing

Line managers are critical to supporting employee wellbeing.

They can spot changes in attitudes and behaviours that suggest someone is struggling and are often the first point of contact when employees face challenges. It’s essential that managers understand their role in supporting wellbeing and feel equipped to handle it.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) provides a range of toolkits to help leaders assess how well they’re preventing stress and building a culture of wellbeing in their teams (see References for links). Developed through research, these tools support managers to self-assess or gather feedback from team members, colleagues, and leaders.

They can also guide training to strengthen leadership skills in promoting wellbeing.

The Line Manager Competency Indicator tool, part of the HSE Management Standards for Stress toolkit, highlights 4 areas of manager behaviour which are essential to prevent and reduce stress:

  • managing emotions and having integrity 
  • managing and communicating existing and future work 
  • managing the individual within the team 
  • reasoning or managing difficult situations 

Reviewing your performance in each of these areas against 12 competencies can help you assess your leadership competencies and highlight where you might improve.

Practical steps to support wellbeing and inclusive conversations 

Managers need both guidance and time to support employee wellbeing effectively. While they’re well-placed to embed wellbeing into daily work, managers should not carry this responsibility alone. A systemic approach is essential for creating evidence-based wellbeing practices across the organisation. Some useful websites include: 

Talking about wellbeing at work

Social workers value open conversations with leaders. Managers who are trained in active listening, mindful engagement, and ‘strength-spotting’ are better equipped to connect with team members. Supervision should offer a non-judgemental space to discuss stress, burnout, and self-care to promote personal growth.

For help with these discussions, try the Talking Toolkits website from the Health and Safety Executive. Here you will find prompts for reflection. For example, you might consider:

  • how involved you feel in decisions about your job 
  • if you feel listened to, trusted, and included in discussions and if there are opportunities for you to give input 
  • how well your skills are being used and how this could be improved 
  • how much of a say you feel you have in how your work is organised and done 
  • what changes do you think would help address any issues you’ve mentioned 

Making conversations inclusive

Leaders should develop skills to ensure inclusive wellbeing conversations that reflect diverse perspectives. Building an environment of curiosity, empathy, and trust helps transform these discussions into growth opportunities. Considering these strategies for discussing sensitive topics, you could:

  • acknowledge and support challenges faced by minority groups, including racism and microaggressions 
  • create shared team norms for a ‘safe space’ by agreeing, for example, that conversations are confidential unless a concern is raised that must be escalated 
  • promote trust, respect, and professionalism within the team to allow time and space for processing emotions
  • emphasise inclusive language to encourage positive change 
  • acknowledge that safety and bravery are perceived differently across identity groups 
  • validate the experiences of diverse identity groups 
  • be patient with team members developing the vocabulary to express themselves 
  • review performance assessments for biases related to gender or race and reflect on ways to address them

References

Biggart, L., Cook, L. L., & Carder, S. (2020). The team as a secure base revisited: Remote working and resilience among child and family social workers during COVID-19. Journal of Children’s Services, 15(4), 259-266.

Griffin, B., et al. (2019). Moral injury: An integrative review. Journal of Traumatic Stress.

Health and Safety Executive. (2023). ‘Work-related stress, depression or anxiety statistics in Great Britain’.

Health and Safety Executive. (n.d.). Managing stress: Talking toolkit

Health and Safety Executive. (n.d.). Management standards on work-related stress

Public Health England (n.d.). Developing and evaluating workplace health interventions.

Schraer, R. (2014, October 1). Six out of 10 social workers would not recommend their workplace. Community Care.

Spilg, E., et al. (2022). The new frontline: Exploring the links between moral distress, moral resilience and mental health during the pandemic. BMC Psychiatry, 22, 19.

Winters, M. (2020). Inclusive conversations: Fostering equity, empathy and belonging across differences. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Next page: Improving access to support for staff

Back to Top
The resources have been developed by Research in Practice in collaboration with DfE.
Published: 27 February 2025
Last updated: 27 February 2025