Wellbeing for the people profession and branch annual meeting
Organised by The CIPD Branch in Hereford and Worcestershire
Organised by The CIPD Branch in Hereford and Worcestershire
An event for people professionals highlighting wellbeing strategies and tools available to support in their workplaces and roles.
Chris – Mindfulness. Chris will be discussing how mindfulness has helped him at work, and how the right culture can help the workplace. Having worked in business as a Director and being responsible for the running of the business he realised how hard it was to create a sustainable culture of safety for employees to be vulnerable about their mental health and wellbeing. The passion and experience he has had for creating a safe culture that embraced mental health and wellbeing was something he wanted to bring to other companies. So The Business of Mindfulness was born.
Chris will share tips, and tools for being mindful and looking after our health and wellbeing, as well as exploring ways in which companies can help support their employees.
Sarah (Sasi) – Confidence. Her own experiences as well as through her connections, Sarah sees and hears so many stories about the pressures and struggles of People professionals. Depleted resilience levels, and feelings of burnout are at an all-time high, which is leading to some of us feeling chronic stress, exhaustion and compassion fatigue, and falling out of love with the People profession altogether.
Sarah believes wholeheartedly that low self-doubt, prolonged low confidence, self-belief, mental illness and burnout can be prevented. She will be discuss her journey through low confidence and mental unwellness, some tips to build confidence, the support available for People professionals, including The HR Confidence Club, a community of shared coping, reassurance, building of confidence, mutual respect, support, kindness, joy, fun, engagement, and networking.
Alan – Raising awareness of burnout, and his personal experiences of the burnout ladder of which his book is based upon. Alan shares his views on why workplace burnout is a growing pandemic, and how the pressure on people is ever increasing. With longer hours and an inability to switch off in this ‘never off’ culture drives chronic stress.
Alan will share the early stages and symptoms of burnout, and if you feel like you are burning out, don’t despair- it is entirely possible to reclaim work-life balance and thrive in an increasingly chaotic workplace.
The Burnout Ladder® offers a new perspective on understanding the progression of burnout, and provides your roadmap to recovery. This structured programme provides insight into what stage you are at, recovery strategies, tools and support to help you regain your vitality.
Guest speakers profiles:
Originally a Sales & Marketing Director involved in various SME businesses, Chris was first attracted to mindfulness to help him deal with the anxiety and stress of running a business.
Mindfulness enabled him to become aware of his reactive behaviours and by working mindfully he was able to bring an equanimity to his day-to-day engagement and ultimately was able to introduce it to his staff.
Due to this engagement, Chris saw that he could introduce mindfulness & mental health first aid into other businesses.
Ultimately he wanted to help the owners, directors, managers, and staff become happier and more engaged. This then developed into supporting companies with a sustainable mental health and wellbeing strategy.
The introduction of these strategies results in a more successful outcome for everyone, both in their business or in their personal lives
Chris is an accredited Breathworks Teacher & First Aid for Mental Health instructor.
Sarah (Sasi) Venables is a Chartered Fellow of the CIPD and CIPD Branch Chair for Hereford and Worcester. She is the Founder of The HR Confidence Club and works full time at the University of Worcester.
Sasi is an highly accomplished People and Culture Specialist with over 20 years’ experience. Her people centered approach focusing on empathy, compassion and kindness helps her to achieve many benefits fr both the employee and the company. Often sought out to be a sounding board, due to her supportive and non-judgmental style, which often enables Sarah to resolve queries, concerns and conflict satisfactorily.
Alan Muskett lives in the rural county of Worcestershire. Having been a people manager for over 30 years, he has been passionate about helping people all my working life, but have only recently decided to make it a full time job.
It was about 10 years ago that he started to feel some real anxiety at work, feeling the pressure of the job and the need to perform and keep delivering. He started to doubt himself, lose sleep worrying about it (mostly unnecessarily), and panic about going to meetings and speaking in front of people - all things he had always done with very little problem.
Alan then Googled a solution and came across mindfulness - which back then he had never heard of. He took an online meditation course and almost immediately found benefits - sleeping better, he had a sense of presence and calm, and seemed to be better at not reacting badly to events.
His research led on to writing a book – The Burnout Ladder and shares the various stages, the symptoms, and tools to tackle burnout.
Please note:
1. Reminder emails will be sent to you the day before, with a further reminder on the day of the event.
2. Photography and video production may be taking place at the event, and these images may be used in the CIPD newsletters.
3. By attending the event, you are giving consent for your image to be used on any CIPD promotional materials.
4. As we are supplying refreshments, if you can no longer attend, please cancel your place either on Eventbrite, or by responding to the confirmation email.
5. This event may include an external speaker who has prepared their own presentation. Any views or opinions expressed by the speaker are their own and do not reflect those of the CIPD.
6. Please note that refunds for CIPD non-member tickets will only be available until seven days prior to the event, any cancelled tickets after this will not receive a refund.
7. If you require any reasonable adjustments to enhance your experience, please get in contact with us by responding to this email and we will do our best to accommodate.
Fri 14 Nov 2025, 10:00-12:00
Worcester Road, Upton Snodsbury, WR7 4NW
