The Hague Tech hosted their 2nd panel discussion for this year on Employee Wellbeing on 20 April 2023.
What a wealth of knowledge and experience shared by the panel:
- Arosha Brouwer, Co-founder & CEO, Quan (moderator)
- Charles Weiler-Ulin, Founder & CEO, Holland Park Media
- Jan-Pieter Versluijs, CEO & Founder, Solar Monkey
- Igor Konstantinos, Head of Marketing, Circularise
Arosha kicked off the event promising the audience they would walk away with meaningful insights – and absolutely didn’t disappoint. She got straight to the point. “It’s not a fluffy topic. You don’t get good performance without wellbeing.”
I spent much of the 1.5 hours scribbling fast, trying to capture some of the amazing wisdom shared. Here’s a few of my notes:
Arosha:
- An athlete friend spends 90% of her time in recovery. Entrepreneurs and founders often forget that rest is necessary, leading to burnout and failed start-ups.
- An organisation cannot exceed the consciousness of its leaders. Self awareness is crucial.
- Time boxing –
Charles:
- Hire slow & fire fast – make sure someone new to the team is a cultural fit.
- Collective Hiring – there must be full consensus from the team for new hires
- When people choose a job that is their passion – you can then lose the passion when you HAVE to do it. Find ways to work on your passion in an unencumbered way – it’s ok to do extra hours if it’s by CHOICE – especially on projects that the team choose to do together for fun, like Party4Planet
Jan-Pieter:
- Wrote an article about wellbeing being important – that made an impact on his company & beyond, especially coming from a male founder (as women have often been public in the past about “balance” but it’s less common for a male.)
- It’s kinda silly to talk about wellbeing – it really should be ingrained. (but still – we have to, because it isn’t yet)
- Creating a company culture that’s flexible – e.g. working abroad or remotely
- If you require people to be at their best, sometimes doing things slowly is best.
- You can care too little or too much (need to find the middle ground)
Igor:
- Your wellbeing affects your team. If you are stressed, it will spill out.
- My no 1. priority is my health and wellbeing. Sport is a non-negotiable.
- Hold on to rituals and principles during work and it will contribute to wellbeing.
- Very diverse team from all different cultures – you can build a high performance team while fostering well-being
Zestee 