John is an international speaker, author, entrepreneur, and Founder and CEO of Healthy Place To Work. He has spent most of his career consulting with multinational organisations on trust, health, wellbeing, and organisational transformation. Formerly a broadcast journalist and expert trainer, John is a regular media contributor and a sought-after international speaker on organisational health, resilience, high performance, and sustainability.
We are delighted to be partnering with Healthy Place to Work for our UK Summit and are looking forward to John’s session at our Manchester Summit on 17th September titled “Time to Rebrand Employee Wellbeing”.
Author of ‘Make Work Healthy’ published by Wiley and presenter of the Work Healthy Podcast, John has a unique insight into the evolution of wellbeing in workplaces across the world and will share examples of what the best are measuring and why? What practices they are implementing and how they are repositioning wellbeing to the C Suite.
We caught up with him to see how he’s feeling in the run up to the summit:
Hi John, we are thrilled that you are joining us at the Wellbeing at Work Summit Manchester in September. Our first and most important question is, how are you doing today?
Today I feel good. The sun is shining and I brought my dog Sammy for at walk on the prom in my home town of Bray, in County Wicklow this morning and it was wonderful. I was set up for the day.
As a leader based in the region, what are the main challenges you are facing when it comes to employee wellbeing and mental health?
Keeping everybody calm and grounded. Things are moving so fast and there doesn’t seem to be too much good news. We can see from the data that there is a serious increase in anxiety and stress levels. A lot has to do with the cost of living with inflation eroding people’s saving and making managing day to day tough. Many people are watching events in the Strait of Hormuz to see how it will feed into their fuel and food prices.
What strategies have you seen developing over the past 6 months, both internally and externally, that are moving the dial on wellbeing in the workplace?
Resilience is the key – not the old-style grit and determination type which is a recipe for burnout and exhaustion but rather a new and contemporary version which is being extremely well received – it’s about building your capacity to cope and creating a network architecture around your life to get you through those tough moments. Most people wish they had learnt these skills years ago.
Why is employee wellbeing so important to you personally?
Performance is everything – you only get one shot at life and we all need to give the performance of our life. Key to performing brilliantly is feeling healthy and well. Being holistically well allows you feel alive and contribute the best you have to give.
What impact is AI having in your organization and how are you managing that?
We are playing with it and using it selectively. When you are in the data business you have to be very careful about privacy as that is key. There is no doubt that it can bring wonderful benefits but we need to be careful to provide guardrails. I believe Europe needs to implement sovereign AI not loose control and implement other countries versions. This is to strategically important.
Other than AI, are there any challenges that you are seeing for the first time and how are you addressing them?
The pace of change is exhausting for most people. Many organisations are poor at change implementation. Those two things combine to create a threat that we need to manage effectively.
What areas do you think employers should be focused on over the next 12 months?
Getting systems in place that give real time information about the people and culture of their organisation. Getting lead data rather than lag data, getting ahead of the curve and being able to deal with the biggest presenting issues before they become difficult problems, become proactive rather than reactive.
Do you feel that investment in employee wellbeing in the region is increasing or decreasing and is that a direct reflection on HR leaders’ increasing ability to demonstrate effective returns of their strategies to leadership?
It is under pressure, I think employee wellbeing is falling down the agenda, and it needs to be redefined as human performance and linked to productivity and organisational metrics so that its relevance and impact are appreciated
How has your organisation been leading the way?
We are teaching the world how to create healthy places to work built on a culture of care that delivers sustainable high performance. Once leaders see the connection between healthy people, healthy cultures, healthy systems and healthy results everybody wins.
John is speaking in Manchester as part of our Wellbeing at Work Summit UK 2026 which takes place in London and Manchester this September. Click the links below to find out more and book your tickets:
London Summit 15th September: Find out more and Book Your London Tickets Here
Manchester Summit 17th September: Find out more and Book Your Manchester Tickets Here
