Gail Richards from Key 2 Sales is making waves in the real estate world with her innovative approach to staff wellbeing.
Recently, the real estate business won the Wellness Initiative of the Year at the Australian Real Estate Awards for their dedication to staff mental and physical health.
Staff wellbeing has been the forefront of her mind since the beginning of the business in 2016.
“At the end of the day, staff wellness is important and if you look after your staff, they’ll look after your customers,” she said.
“If people are happy at work, they tend to do better, versus dragging yourself through the door everyday thinking ‘I have to go to work.’
“We have a great team camaraderie.”
Some of the initiatives including shared Monday lunches, a zen room, healthy snacks, and monthly staff mentoring.
She was hopeful that more businesses would start to focus on their staff wellbeing, rather than profits, and said flexibility – especially in today’s working life – was key.
“Staff aren’t robots at the end of the day, they are people as well, and they have challenges both at work and challenges outside of the office that we don’t know about,’ she said.
“Since Covid – and we are all still juggling Covid in that one day people are at work and then they are off for a week – I think just being flexible, flexibility is seen as a real positive, especially for parents, in working environments.”
“I think a lot of people see it as a cost, rather than an investment, but it’s like anything, if you invest in your staff and in them being happy and healthy at work, then there is less downtime and bigger staff retention.
“If they are happy at work they aren’t going to look for another job, they are happy to come to work.”
Part of the prize involved a mentoring package by health experts Benny Button, who will host three workshops for all of the staff.
“We have three workshops over the next three months on different workplace wellbeing so we can continue to grow a better workplace for our employees,” she said.
“We are excited to start that and see what comes out of it.”
Most recently, Ms Richards starred as the cover girl on Elite Agent magazine, a quarterly real estate magazine, highlighting the great wellness initiatives at Key 2 Sale.
