Whole You: A Holistic Look at Employee Wellness

Courtney Fitzpatrick

Whole You: A Holistic Look at Employee Wellness

At Wisetail, we want to maintain an overall focus on empowering a culture that strives to be a great place to work. We acknowledge that our employees’ lives extend beyond the office, so we endeavor to provide creative ways to not only retain our talent — but invest, support, and advocate ways to help each individual grow personally and professionally. Thus, the ‘Whole You’ concept was created.

The Whole Employee

Whole You is a regenerative program designed to bring relevant topics to the surface that account for not only what happens at the office, but in life in general — so employees can be their best at work and at home. Whole You brings together subject matter experts on topics such as financial well-being, effective leadership, and other essential skills like public speaking and time management. It also provides a platform to share and learn from others’ real life experiences.

We’ve found Whole You as a way to disconnect from the day-to-day grind, stretch our brains in new ways, and give folks the opportunity to connect with others from outside their department. Ultimately, our goal is to provide creative ways not just to retain our talent but truly invest in our people, support their interests, challenge them, and strive to find something that sparks an interest in each individual to grow personally and professionally.

We have had many notable speakers share their story or expertise with us in the last year (with the added bonus of most being found right within our community).

Here are a handful of folks we’ve hosted recently:

Amy Andrews

Amy shared her perspective on mindful vs. mindless eating, body awareness, and using eating as an opportunity to nourish and connect (to ourselves and others). We also spent some time exploring being more intentional with time and boundaries and saying no to honor our priorities.

Blair Speed

Blair Speed, endurance coach and photographer, shared her expertise on Goal Orientated Training and the mental practices to get there. “Braiding mental practices into your goal-orientated-training can help you commit, stay consistent, and reach your goals. These simple, personal, + planned thoughts have profound impacts on our ability to reach our goals and help promote positive habits throughout our days”.

Chef Halden Pederson

Wisetail’s honorary caterer/taco aficionado/mead-maker and husband of our wonderful Operations Manager, Cristy Pedersen, shared some essential culinary skills including: How to make basic emulsions, knife skills, and balancing flavors (salting and curing).

Maggie Chumbley

A facilitation geek and consultant. Her facilitation practice focuses on helping groups clarify their purpose, articulate challenges, build trust, and discover ways of working together that are collaborative and include all voices. In her repertoire is a range of participatory social technologies and methods that explicitly embed the principles of: creative destruction to enable innovation, amplify freedom and responsibility, and practicing self-discovery within a group.

Zoe Strauss

Zoe from PRH — People’s Republic of Health (our neighbors across the street) shared an overview of acupuncture and an intro to Chinese medicine. They even transformed our cafe into a zen space to give folks who had never tried acupuncture a stab [bad joke].

Lorca Smetana

Lorca Smetana found herself a survivor in the aftershock of one of the worst climbing accidents in the history of this country. For 33 years, she has been giving herself to resilience and compassion — adding light in every direction. As a resilience teacher and coach for students, businesses and communities she has worked with educators, emergency responders, medical personnel, cancer support, death workers, and caregivers to make each stronger and happier. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

During our time with Lorca, we explored the topic of burnout and how to practice the skill of resiliency. The results of working with resilience appear in more alive employees — less stress, more aligned with purpose, with more integrated professional, physical, spiritual and emotional lives. You’ll also see greater creativity and humor in the face of the challenges inherent in your mission. They make fewer mistakes, miss less work, innovate more, and last longer. These are not small things. They are a powerful gift to your organization’s mission and to the people you care about in it. And these are the kind of people you want to show up to work with, and the kind of person you want to offer to this world.

John Parkes

John Parkes is a recognized HR and retail executive with Murdoch’s, a 27 store retail organization in the farm and ranch sector, with locations throughout Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, and Colorado. Over the years, John has committed to giving back to his community. A notable speaker on topics such as leadership, customer service and employee relations.

“We cannot become what we want to be by remaining what we are”

Travis Swanson

Travis leads continuing education and training for Search and Rescue and he is also on the Heli, Alpine, Swift Water, and Posse Teams. He shared outdoor survival skills — from how to best set up for success to best handle emergency situations.

Kate Murphy

Kate Murphy of Health Revolt educates and guides individuals on their path to optimal health by facilitating key exercise, nutrition, and lifestyle changes. It provides critical information regarding disease prevention as well as the many debates surrounding diet and exercise, empowering individuals to enhance their lives and take control of their own health. Foundation Training (FT) is a series of corrective exercises designed to strengthen our ‘core’. Very important for those of us who work in tech and are sitting at desks for the majority of the day.

Books, Books, Books

In addition to gathering together with folks from our community, book suggestions are welcome and added regularly to the Whole You Library. This gives others the opportunity to dive into topics of interest on their own time and often sparks new and unexpected ideas and kicks off conversations amongst teams. After all, books are one of humanity’s oldest and most effective ways for expanding minds, sparking creativity, and exercising empathy. If you want your employees to enjoy the benefits of reading, then worry less about surface perks and make books more accessible.

Looking to start your own library? Check out our team’s books list to get you started.

Atomic Habits: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results By James Cleary
Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and ResponsibilityBy Patty McCord
Do Big Things: The Simple Steps Teams Can Take to Mobilize Hearts and Minds, and Make an Epic Impact
True to Form: How to Use Foundation Training for Sustained Pain Relief and Everyday Fitness By Dr. Eric Goodman
Leadership Framed by Art By Iris Lavy
The Headspace Guide to Meditation and Mindfulness: How Mindfulness Can Change Your Life in Ten Minutes a Day By Andy Puddecombe
It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work By Jason Fried
Get Your Sh*t Together: How to Stop Worrying About What You Should Do So You Can Finish What You Need to Do and Start Doing What You Want to Do (A No F*cks Given Guide) By Sarah Knight
Day Hikes Around Bozeman Montana By Robert Stone

The Whole Employee

As we approach the milestone of 50 employees, we look forward to continuing Whole You at Wisetail — sharing, learning, and bringing awareness of all the talented, creative, and thought-provoking people sprinkled liberally throughout our community. All with an emphasis on challenging and inspiring our team. Because the more we invest in our team, the more our team invests in the organization.

The Wisetail LMS Learning and Development lead, Courtney Fitzpatrick.

BY COURTNEY FITZPATRICK

Courtney is the Learning & Development Lead at Wisetail. Her goal is to craft happy and engaging experiences that give Wisetail employees the tools to grow.

Courtney Fitzpatrick