Port Macquarie Hastings Council responded to workforce challenges by inviting employees to help shape the wellbeing solutions they needed most, and the results speak for themselves.

In the week leading up to the 2025 AHRI Awards Celebration event on 5 December, HRM is publishing the case studies of some of this year’s finalists.

Across many businesses, the past few years have exposed how fragile workforce wellbeing can be when employees face sustained pressure both inside and outside the workplace. 

At Port Macquarie Hastings Council, a string of natural disasters brought this vulnerability into the spotlight.

Amid bushfires, COVID-19 and multiple large-scale flooding events from 2019-22, the organisation was facing rising injury and illness rates, higher turnover and growing levels of unplanned leave. 

“The majority of our staff members are community members too, and were personally impacted by a lot of these events,” says Ashlee Weigel, Manager People Policy and Planning, Port Macquarie Hastings Council.

The recognition that employees were carrying both the emotional and practical weight of these events prompted the council to rethink what meaningful and deliberate wellbeing support looked like outside the standard approach of resilience training and EAP. 

Rather than designing a new wellbeing program in isolation, the HR team began working with employees to understand the pressures they faced and what would make a tangible difference. 

The co-designed program has delivered measurable gains; the organisation has achieved significant reductions in injuries and sick leave, increased uptake and engagement with its wellbeing offerings and strengthened psychosocial safety across its 700-strong workforce.

Following the success of this program, the council has been nominated for the Best Health & Wellbeing Strategy Award at this year’s AHRI Awards and Scholarship program.

Here’s how they did it.

A co-designed wellbeing program

A core objective of the council’s refreshed wellbeing strategy was to design support structures alongside employees in a way that felt grounded in day-to-day experience.

“It wasn’t the big, showy things,” says Bree Scaysbrook, Employee Relations Officer at Port Macquarie Hastings Council. “It was the foundational elements that made wellbeing forefront for our people.” 

For example, during the consultation process, employees who worked outdoors requested a hydration salts pilot during the summer months to help them manage long periods working in the heat – a small but impactful employee-led initiative that was simple to provide. 

Meanwhile, office managers flagged that they were often in back-to-back meetings all day without breaks; in response, default meeting times were reduced to 25 or 50 minutes to give them time between meetings.

“We’ve got a better universal language across the organisation for wellbeing. People are recognising that something they wouldn’t have necessarily thought of as [related to] wellbeing actually does contribute to it.” – Bree Scaysbrook, Employee Relations Officer at Port Macquarie Hastings Council

The co-design process also surfaced the fact that many employees weren’t aware of resources that already existed.

“We already had a fitness passport [initiative] – all we had to do was promote it, and we had a 30 per cent increase in memberships,” says Weigel.

This highlighted the importance of having robust communication strategies to promote workplace initiatives.

One concern during the consultation process was that office employees would have better access to information. To bridge this gap, a new communication channel was established using on-site digital display screens through which field employees could access information and provide their feedback.

The results of small shifts like these have been profound. Since the program started, reported injuries have dropped by 36 per cent, and the average sick leave use per worker has dropped by over 20 per cent, easing resourcing pressures and improving service delivery.

“Previously, we concentrated primarily on what we were doing for our community,” says Weigel. “Whereas now we’re equally focused on [taking care of] our employees so they can effectively support the community.”

Embedding wellbeing into long-term strategy

Once momentum had grown, the council expanded its lens to look at how wellbeing connected with wider organisational systems.

“We’ve pointed out and demonstrated that wellbeing is already in a lot of the things that we do,” says Scaysbrook.

One example was diversity and inclusion. As part of the new wellbeing strategy, the business established an Employee Insight Network made up of employees from diverse roles, backgrounds and experiences. This Network was able to feed into the new program and help to align it with the council’s Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan.

Flexibility emerged repeatedly in these conversations as both an inclusion enabler and a wellbeing necessity. Employees spoke about caring responsibilities, health conditions and stages of life that required adaptable work arrangements, reinforcing the need for more accessible and consistent pathways to flexible work.

Since the program began, the organisation has tripled flexible work approvals to help support employees’ diverse personal and professional needs.

“We’ve got a better universal language across the organisation for wellbeing,” says Scaysbrook. “People are recognising that something they wouldn’t have necessarily thought of as [related to] wellbeing actually does contribute to it.”

A cultural shift towards psychosocial safety

As the refreshed wellbeing program became more embedded throughout the organisation, a clear cultural shift started to emerge.

“I’m seeing people be more open and willing to put themselves out there,” says Scaysbrook.

“[For example], we celebrated invisible disabilities recently, and I had a staff member share her experience with invisible disabilities. She’s had people come up and approach her about their personal situations because she spoke about her experience. 

“Something small like that, where you can see the impact on an individual and the flow-on effect for our workforce, and hear that people are really starting to feel that sense of community, makes all the difference.”

The employee-led approach and the demonstration that employee input shaped real decisions also encouraged more people to get involved.

“There has been a noticeable increase in engagement, with employees that were previously reluctant to get involved now jumping on board. That is the part I am most proud of,” says Weigel.

The council’s nomination for an AHRI award has reinforced that the transformation is the product of collective effort, and has become a moment to reflect on how far the organisation has come.

“It’s amazing for our local council to be recognised on a national platform,” says Weigel.

“It reflects all of the effort that so many of our employees put in – the executives, the leadership team, our Employee Insight Network and everyone who engaged in consultation – it’s recognition for everyone.”

Learn how to implement wellbeing initiatives in your organisation with this professional development offering from AHRI,  created to give you a step-by-step process for designing a wellbeing strategy tailored for your organisation’s unique needs.