Friends,

One cool offer and one cool update.

First, the offer. I'm increasingly hearing about workforces that are looking for ways to support the sandwich generation. This is your employees who are feeling stuck between parenting (where there’s pretty widespread dialogue and support for), and carenting (caretaking of parents and grandparents). The second one is less well known (aging generation and all), but it’s causing a lot of workers to pull back or opt out altogether — and companies aren’t really sure what to do.

Fortunately for you, Melissa Reader (CEO of Vera) is offering her expertise to teams, boards and workplaces looking for support, with dedicated sessions. Check out my post here if you’re interested in taking this up in time for International Families Week.

Secondly, I’m off on holidays! I’m headed to Africa for a little R&R (and of course some 🦁 🦒 🦏 and other cool animals) for a whole two weeks.

But don’t worry, I’ve managed to get the next few editions of the newsletter drafted and ready, so while I may pop in with safari updates in this section, the big work is done and you’ll still hear from me (and more importantly, the experts) for the next couple of weeks.

Enjoy ✌

Matt

In case you’re new here (or just missed it) here’s the past three editions of the FNDN Series:

Tracksuit relocated their Head of Marketing to the US to scale one of ANZ's fastest-growing brands.

Paraform's GM moved from Auckland to San Francisco to raise investment and quadruple their team size.

They didn't wait until they had a global mobility team or a massive budget, they just found the best person for the role and made it happen.

The visa? Just another step in the process.

They're not unusual. Whether it's relocating someone overseas or bringing international talent in to work domestically, the competitive advantage is the same: you get the best person, not just the best person nearby.

The fastest-growing companies have figured out something simple: the visa is the easy part when you've got the right partner.

Concord has helped 100’s of companies make international moves. From two-person startups to names like Tracksuit and Paraform. Most of them started exactly where you are: one great candidate, an exciting opportunity, and a lot of questions.

If visas are the reason you're not hiring the best person for the role, that's a problem Concord can solve.

Know a startup Head of People looking for answers 🙋 why not forward this to them for some instant karma? ✨

This edition is based on the latest episode of the FNDN Series podcast, with Phil Wolffe.

Phil is a Workplace Wellbeing Specialist with over 15 years and more than 25,000 consultations of experience to his name. He has worked with hundreds of companies across dozens of industries, designing and delivering strategies that improve performance, resilience and wellbeing.

For years, my go-to answer for "we need to do something about wellbeing" was to add another line item.

A discount program first, then a gym membership, then an EAP and a poster with a number on it, and eventually a meditation app that nobody really used.

I thought I was building a wellbeing strategy. Really, I was just wellbeing stacking.

As I learned from my conversation with Phil Wolffe, wellbeing is the system the work runs on.

This is the version of that conversation I wish I had many years ago. The strategy that replaces your wellbeing stack, and the case for getting on with it now.

Mental load leading to burnout is a prolific problem in workplaces. 

Always on, always available, always performing, always one notification away from the next task. 

You might already feel it, but AI made it worse. 

The boring admin tasks that AI took over should give people the recovery time they need, but instead people are using AI to do the work of 5 people just to keep their job.

Stacking perks (discount program, EAP, mental health day, gym subsidy, the occasional meditation app) is the most common response. 

None of it is bad, but none of it is a strategy.

Phil's test for whether a workplace system works is simple. If everyone plays by the rules (no heroics, no shortcuts), will they be:

Take an annual performance review where the rating is the first time someone hears critical feedback. 

It might be productive (calibration happens).
It is not safe (people walk in anxious and walk out blindsided).
And it is not prosperous (nobody leaves with a path to grow). 

The system is broken even if the wellbeing stack is full.

Apply the test where the actual systems live: onboarding, workload distribution, manager training, after-hours expectations, conflict resolution, how bullying gets handled.

Do they pass?

Because, often, a wellbeing stack never counts towards having this kind of impact.

The traditional model of wellbeing support is often reactive. Companies sign up with an EAP, there’s a number on the poster, and the message is implicit: "if you break, call this number." 

Phil calls this the safety net at the bottom of a cliff, but programs that are ‘designed-in support’, start before the fact. 

The training, the equipment, the instruction, the people there to support you so don’t fall, and the escalation path when self-regulation runs out.

Instead, Phil uses a framework that can scale from a one-person company to a 10,000-person one:

Phil's reframe is what makes it stick: wellbeing is how the work itself is designed.

Do not wait for a catalyst. 

Phil's principle is "you’re never too small, never too big, never too early, never too late." 

The old assumption was that companies get serious about wellbeing after the first big burnout, or once they hit 100 employees and have an HR team to take it on. By the time the crisis surfaces, the issue has already grown.

The single biggest-impact place to start is manager upskilling. A trained manager understands their team's performance patterns and protects recovery without adding hours. They model the skills, then they teach them.

Treat manager wellbeing capability as professional development, alongside the technical training that already gets a budget line.

Unsurprisingly, the ROI is real. Phil's longest client moved their workers' compensation insurance premiums from low seven figures to mid six figures per year. That works out to roughly a 12-14x return on a single metric, ignoring retention, performance, absenteeism, and the cost of replacing burnt-out senior hires.

In a separate client's six-month report, burnout got worse across every cohort except one: the group who engaged in 1:1 health consultations. They got better while the rest of the business got worse.

That’s tangible impact.

Take Phil's question into your next leadership meeting. If everyone plays by the rules, will they be safe, productive, and prosperous? If the answer to any of those is no, the system is broken, and no amount of fruit baskets will fix it.

Pick one workplace system this week (your standup, your performance review, your on-call rotation, your weekly 1:1) and run it through the test. 

That is where your real wellbeing strategy starts.

If you enjoyed this post or know someone who may find it useful, please share it with them and encourage them to subscribe.

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When you’re ready, here’s three ways I can help you:

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