Sarah Knight, founder and workplace culture consultant at Sarah Knight Consultancy: “Increasingly over the last few years the key need has been for support and strategy around building and managing workplace cultures to deliver wellbeing and reduce burnout.

“The sad fact is that so many agencies and organisations have a tick box wellbeing strategy and look at surface level strategies to manage resilience, reduce burnout and build wellbeing. And, as we see so often in the agency model, when it’s quiet it’s hard to justify budget into these things and when it's busy, it’s hard to justify the time to deliver on wellbeing and reducing burnout. Pizza lunches, social lunches and a few bean bags with a half-hearted ‘we protect your lunch hour’ doesn’t manage or deal with burnout.

“In a nutshell, there is no one approach to managing and building resilience in the workplace; there is a desperate need for training, consistent L&D strategies and coaching. Investment in these areas supercharges productivity, creativity and reduces the risk of burnout.

Beccie Stevenson, associate director at PR firm Kindred: “We have a no meetings rule on Wednesday afternoons to ensure people have time protected for deep work, and diaries are blocked out across lunchtime hours on our non-office days to prompt everyone to take a break from their laptops. We also have a weekly wellbeing hour, where people are encouraged to take an hour off.

“Our recent staff survey showed 88% of respondents feel they can talk to someone at work about personal issues that might affect their ability to cope at work. Being able to share worries or concerns before you reach the stage of burnout means someone can step in before it gets to crisis point. This is something we talk about together – it might be practical help, building in headspace or extra emotional support – but it’s definitely about having each other’s backs.”

Gemma Eccleston, founder of Hendrix Rose PR: “Your staff are only as good as your investment in their well-being and development.

“To really understand how your staff feel, effective communication is essential. Regular anonymised staff surveys provide valuable information on employee opinions, needs, and expectations while identifying areas for improvement. When it comes to staff initiatives, it’s important to avoid gimmicks and remember that a one-size-fits-all approach may not work.

“It’s important to recognise that everyone is different, and everyone wants to feel valued. Regular check-ins and open lines of communication help build trust and demonstrate support, allowing leaders to better understand individual needs and recognise potential signs of burnout. Empathy and understanding are vital here - strong leadership should always, in my opinion, include a compassionate approach. How can staff remain happy if you’re disconnected or they think you don’t care?

“Establishing Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) can provide employees with safe spaces to connect, share experiences, and support one another, helping to improve well-being.I also firmly believe in flexible working arrangements to allow staff to balance their personal and professional lives effectively, as well as strong workplace policies that prioritise mental health and well-being to demonstrate your commitment. PR can be a challenging industry, so as employers, our goal is to provide the support and resources needed to help our teams excel."

Nicola Carroll, head of culture at PR firm Speed: “In an industry as fast paced and varied as PR, we know we need to be mindful of the risk of burnout to our team. As such, we prioritise the team’s health and happiness with activities such as team walks and meditations, regular catch ups with managers, time off for volunteering and quarterly sharing sessions.

“I believe listening to the team is the secret to fostering the best possible culture for our agency. In just the last few weeks we have reviewed our internal comms and made commitments to reducing meetings and email traffic in response to team feedback about managing overwhelm at work.

“As well as this, we have refreshed our development programme ‘Room 2 Grow’ by introducing a wellbeing objective and wellness action plan that line managers and reports work on together to ensure our team are pausing to think about what support they need to feel healthy and happy at work. Our aim is to empower the team to think about what works best for them individually, and to ask us for the right support.”

Natalie Luke, founder and MD at Aduro Communications: “To prevent overworking and burnout, we never resource anyone’s time to more than 70%. That 30% buffer is for lunches, breaks, reading content and media, and catching up. Client over-servicing is capped at 10% but through good time management and planning, we rarely reach that.

“We also feel that trust is a key player in preventing burnout in agency life. Our flexible working policy allows people two days each week to work from wherever they choose. If you have to take a pet to the vet, or if something’s being delivered and you have to wait at home, we trust you and believe this is an important part of the balance between happiness and burnout in the working environment.

“Our twice-yearly review programme has a focus on mental health, while our annual staff survey in June benchmarks this by choosing different colours to show how you’re feeling. We also ask for three suggested ways people could feel happier at Aduro – and the rest of the year, we simply keep a close eye out for each other. Counselling or therapy is on offer via our flexible benefits package, and we have a trained Mental Health First Aider and we also offer mental health training to line managers.”