Wellbeing that actually lands

Created by VERCIDA for Sage

Teresa Bryson, Head of Workplace Change and Engagement at Sage, on what twenty years at Sage has taught her about wellbeing that works both as a colleague and a leader.

Teresa Bryson started out in Sales, a career that showed her just how driven and competitive she is. However, Teresa was struggling with a problem that consistently hitting her targets could not solve. Put her in front of a customer and she was fine. Put her in front of a room and she went bright red, sweated through her clothes and bolted for the door.

Her manager fortunately, very early into her career, spotted potential and asked the question that would shape the next two decades for Teresa: how do we support you so you can lead? Sage’s answer was not a webinar. It was a two-year life coaching qualification at Newcastle College, paid for in full.

Twenty years on, Teresa is Head of Workplace Change and Engagement for Sage’s Places team. She spent thirteen years managing teams across sales, retention and customer success, and is a qualified healthy mind coach. She has learnt a lot about wellbeing and shares some of her wisdom in this article.

"Sage sponsored me because somebody recognised I had a talent. I was struggling with confidence. By undertaking that course, I started to challenge my own mindset and put myself in difficult situations."

The cost of not noticing

Looking back, Teresa is candid about what she got wrong. The phrase she uses is "highly functioning stress", and the trouble with it, is the word "functioning". You can run on it for years before something forces you to look up.

"I think sometimes it just became the norm," she says. "Your calendar’s full. You’re going from one meeting to the next. Your speech becomes faster. Your thinking time reduces; you struggle showing vulnerability. That can indicate you’re taking too much on."

As a manager, she saw the same pattern in her highest performers. Target-driven people who would not come off the phones for a five-minute conversation, let alone a holiday. Part of her job became unglamorous: nudging them to book the leave, use the foundation days, take the massage their benefits covered.

The shift in her own thinking came during lockdown, managing a large team with a significant revenue target while homeschooling her six-year-old. "I’d taken my eye off the self-care," she says. What changed it was not a programme. It was a vulnerable conversation with her own leader, asking for help she had not thought she was allowed to ask for.

The difference between performative and real wellbeing

"Performative wellbeing looks good on the surface," she says. "Activities, events, even great resources. But it doesn’t change how people show up or feel day to day." What does change it is harder to quantify: the quality of relationships at work, curiosity of each individual’s human capacity and being genuinely interested in that, and the willingness of leaders to have honest conversations rather than avoid them.

The Sage High Performance transformation Culture programme, a three-year initiative aimed at all colleagues but lead by roughly two thousand people leaders globally, was built around that premise. The behaviours it focused on were not exotic. Feedback. Accountability, Customer Centricity, empowerment, engagement and recognition which all allow for Clarity of expectations. Get this right, people thrive and the company culture thrives.

She is clear, though, that leaders are not the whole answer. "I see the role as creating the conditions for wellbeing, rather than owning it entirely. People often don’t do what’s good for them. Leaders are there to nudge: are you using these resources? This is what’s available to you."

Office Magic and the case for the simple thing

Two examples illustrate what she means. Both are unfashionably low-tech.

Office Magic began when Sage was bringing people back into offices after lockdown. Regional Sage people engagement leads receive a quarterly budget and a small volunteer squad and spend it bringing Sage people together. Customer markets. Black History Month. Mental Health Week. The events are Sage people-led and discretionary. The people running them do it because they care, not because it is in their job description.

More recently, Teresa’s team hosted Space Northeast at the Newcastle office, an initiative that amounts to a coffee van and a group of people willing to start conversations. "It’s simple, human and real. There’s no agenda beyond building connection. If you go and get a coffee, they have a conversation."

Both work for the same underlying reason. They lower the cost of showing up.

Why she has stayed at Sage

Teresa did not plan to stay twenty years. "I’ve been fortunate to work with some great leaders and have great career opportunities taking a squiggly career path over the years, I feel I add value and have a great network here.  There have been moments where Sage showed up and the support was genuine."

The other reason is structural. Sage funded her career sideways as well as upwards. The life coaching course. Later, NLP training. More recently, change management and project management qualifications. "A lot of people feel stuck with their careers. When you work for an organisation that promotes moving sideways and not just up, that has a huge impact on wellbeing as well."

"There’s an abundance of things you can do if you want it. The roles I’m in now, I would not have known existed fifteen years ago. Through relationship building and continuous learning, you can go a lot of places."