Today (5 February) sees The Drum launch The Wellbeing Diaries, a video series examining, and occasionally putting to the test, brands' and agencies' bid to improve their employees' wellbeing in the workplace.

To kick off the series, we headed to Wunderman UK to speak to chief executive Pip Hulbert who was leading a ‘fab abs’ class in the agency's new in-house wellness suite. She said: “We take wellbeing really seriously, I think it is an important part of everybody's day to day to make them be the best and to be able to perform to create the best work that we can at Wunderman.

“We recognise that as a manager at Wunderman part of your responsibility of doing great creative and work is also to look after your teams and the wellbeing of the people who work here. So we are making sure that those people who have that responsibility are trained on what is on offer here and how it can be of a benefit to the employees.”

The newly built area, which features a recycled school gym floor and climbing apparatus, is open to workshops, talks and exercise classes for employees to enjoy at any time of the day.  

One employee, Nicola Morgan, senior account director at Wunderman UK, who was involved in setting up the area, joked that she wasn’t ready to get into her yoga leggings in work, however was enjoying the accessibility to talks and classes. She said: “It’s generally helping me focus on the right things. There have been so many talks on breathing and general activity outside of work.”

Lucy Eldridge, a creative at Wunderman UK, agreed that the classes available are great for wellbeing but also as a distraction. She said: “I wouldn’t say it is making me leave any earlier because sometimes I end up taking up too much time with these wellbeing bits.”

See more about how Wunderman UK is working to improve the wellbeing of their employees in the first installment of the Wellbeing Diaries.