Workplace Wellbeing with Emma-Louise Fusari, Founder of In-House Health

Wellbeing at work is not just a trending topic on LinkedIn, it's a vital component of running a successful business and retaining top talent. We sat down with Emma-Louise Fusari, founder of In-House Health and #WellTech expert, to discuss how her business helps digital tech companies avoid employee burnout, work-related stress, and boost wellbeing.

Emma-Louise Fusari, founder of In-House Health

Hi Emma-Louise! Thank you for speaking with us! So, what is your main job role and responsibility within the business?

I’m founder of In-House Health and as a Well Tech start-up that pretty much means I’m involved in all areas of the business. My main responsibility is to ensure that our services and products help business leaders get to the root cause of health and wellbeing issues within their organisation. As a registered nurse, I stick to the clinical/wellbeing development side of things and don’t get too involved with any hands-on techy stuff!

What do you guys do? 

We work with ambitious but overstretched digital tech organisations, using a data-first approach to help them establish and eliminate the root cause of issues such as work-related stress and employee burnout. We’ve developed the M.E.T.A Wellbeing Audit and M.E.T.A Programme®, a 12-month employee wellbeing programme that not only supports employees with bespoke training and education but also gives the organisation an expert in their corner to drill down and deliver strategic wellbeing in line with other business measurements and outcomes.

What are you most proud of or excited about for the business?

This year I was named a Top 40 Northern Gamechanger and recently won a Tech for Good award at the TalkTalk NW Women in Tech Awards. I’m still completely shocked, but absolutely delighted that what I’ve set out to create and deliver to help individuals and businesses has received some recognition.

What have been the challenges of starting your business, and do you have any advice you can share?

Oh, every day is a challenge for me! Coming from the NHS, I’ve had to learn the ins and outs and more importantly the ups and downs of starting and running a business. I often think my growth has been slow and that’s partly due to bootstrapping and partly down to having to build a network from scratch. I’ve found that being mentally resilient and has been extremely beneficial when things aren’t going well. I’d like to think given my nursing experience I also have a good self-awareness around emotional intelligence; it’s a skill that is really needed and can be developed if that awareness isn’t there.

What is next for you guys?

The next stage is to get some more companies on board the M.E.T.A Programme® as early adopters so we can start building our products and services to deliver even more value and even better tangible results for digital tech organisation and the wider tech sector.

What are your top tips for implementing a wellbeing strategy?

You probably have a strategy for most areas of your business but when it comes to employee wellbeing, this important piece of strategy is often missing. Here are some things for you to consider, keeping in mind immediate support as well as more long term and preventative approaches to help your people thrive and your organisation succeed.

1. First and foremost, ensure leadership and management are bought in to developing and delivering a strategy; they should be acting as role models in your organisation.
2. Consider your business objectives and what you will measure to ensure your strategy is impacting both people health and wellbeing and your business outcomes.
3. Engage employees in all stages of the development and roll out of the strategy.
4. Measure, measure, measure. If it’s not measured, it can’t be managed (I know someone that can help with that!). A strategy is a live document, not something that gets done once and filed away.
5. Start small. Individual Wellbeing Action Plans are a great (and free) tool to embed wellbeing conversations and support into your culture. Click here for a Wellbeing Action Plan Template and A Manager’s Guide.

Thank you so much Emma-Louise! If you would like any more information about In-House Health, then just click here.