And it all comes to fruition on a day well-known on the global sporting calendar. With a course weaving around some of London’s most well-known landmarks – such as Canary Wharf, the Tower of London, Big Ben and the Mall – participants are tracked by friends and family, as well as television cameras that beam proceedings around the world.

Over the years, the finish line has graced the likes of Paula Radcliffe, Jenson Button and Mo Farrah, plus celebrities like Chris Evans, Catherine Jenkins and Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Group now sponsors the marathon. Participants across a broad range of skillsets, impairments and backgrounds come together to challenge themselves and, often, to raise money too. Individual races exist for those with mobility impairments, younger runners and men and women, respectively.

Yet despite these differences, the unification of a common goal to raise money for charitable causes brings those separated by gender, ethnicity, nationality and ability together. It’s unsurprising, when witnessing the phenomena, that so many people develop a strong bond with the London Marathon. But it's not just competitors and viewers. It follows that working on something with such a clear purpose and high profile attracts individuals looking for more than a regular job. Which is why those that work for London Marathon Events, the company behind every aspect of the race, enjoy the herculean tasks involved – including shutting down some of the city’s busiest roads, liaising with sponsors, charities and media outlets, and coordinating a small army of volunteers both before, during and after the event. And in charge of ensuring that those individuals stay focussed and are looked after is Stephanie Easton, Head of People at the company.

Name versus nurture

In the four years since Stephanie took on the role, the high-output team has grown to become 54 full time staff. In this period of quick growth, she’s been extremely conscious of retaining the culture of passion and communication that attracted her to the role in the first place. Whilst she admits that some are attracted to the company because of its iconic status, she believes that the number one pull for prospective staff is the engaging culture and focus the company puts on staff wellbeing. “We have a super passionate and dedicated staff. Some of the staff are runners and want an opportunity to be part of the race, but there are some who just come to us because they want a good place to work. We definitely don’t use the company name as an excuse to get people to pull more than their weight, and when hiring, we try to be as diverse as possible.”

Central to this, Stephanie is concerned with ensuring that the employee base has a voice. As she explains, working on such a prestigious event can increase the pressure placed on the shoulders of those behind its creation. As such, she strives to ensure that those under her remit are heavily represented to the C-suite. “I was voted for two years running to be the staff representative on the senior leadership team. They relay any concerns to me, and I ensure they’re put on the table. That worked so well that I am now a permanent fixture, to ensure that the voice of the staff is keenly felt,” she says.

HR’s evolution

Stephanie is also happy to share her reflections on the progression of HR from having a largely administrative remit to being a purposeful people-centric function. “It’s definitely gone from being something that is transactional to more strategic and future-focussed. Really, blending the two things is what I’ve had to hone my skills in. When I first started, HR was more inward facing. We were looking solely at what we were doing as a company and what we could potentially do better. Now, we’re so much more connected globally. We’re sharing best practices and concepts like never before. It’s allowed us to bring in so much more to positively impact our culture and our businesses as a whole. I think that’s made a huge difference; I also think that’s why I’ve been able to move around through different sectors. People are people wherever you go.”

This, then, obviously has weighty ramifications for the future of the people function. Whilst no one can predict what the future will hold, and the current challenge presented to HR over the global coronavirus pandemic rings true to this, Stephanie states that the situation also highlights just how important it is for the function to look forward and envision where it may be best utilised within the business world. In other words: to truly define its own purpose. “What will the working world look like in the future? Not just in COVID-19, but the many other areas we’re already seeing having an impact. People’s work-life balance, parents working longer hours and navigating childcare – how are we as HR professionals creating that futureproofed environment to ensure that workers have the support in place? These are the things we need to work out now.”

Coronavirus and the
future of worker wellbeing

Coronavirus and the future of worker wellbeing

As for the immediate future, it is, of course the pandemic that concerns Stephanie. She says: “We’re in a global pandemic. It’s presence is felt in all industries but when measures are lifted fully, there will be redundancies, grief, sadness, loss, a sense of loneliness, uncertainty and potentially pay cuts. It’s up to leadership and HR to work out how we’re creating an environment that really helps foster growth mindsets and personal control to understand that every single staff member is going to have a different mindset, and will be in a different place on the change curve. Some organisations, we can see, have done brilliantly at setting their teams up to work more flexibly. I hope that continues, especially in industries that were more traditional in their thinking about workplace structure. But the pandemic has helped leaders see the value of HR, and that it’s an extremely valuable resource to invest in to get the best out of it.”

At London Marathon Events, Stephanie’s future-focussed approach has already proven itself to be effective. Numerous studies from the likes of Mayo Clinic have evidenced how, whilst remote working has taken a front seat in the conversation around work-life balance due to COVID-19, work-life balance has been negatively affected. Professionals are, on average, working up to two hours more per day, with the lines between the working week and personal time becoming ever-more blurred.

Yet, long before this conversation arose, Stephanie implemented a number of policies such as a wellbeing allowance, wellness action plans and a policy of what she calls ‘recovery days’. Staff wellbeing is just a core part of her purpose and the wider business’. “If someone is feeling like they’re fatigued and that work is getting on top of them, they need to just give the company 24 hours of notice and they can take the day for themselves to recover. They can use that time to do whatever they feel best gets them into a good headspace. That may be going for a run, or shutting the door and spending the day on the sofa,” she says. As a result of their efforts, in a time when many companies are struggling to even cover the basics of wellbeing support, London Marathon Events was awarded an achievement from Great Places To Work as a ‘Centre of Excellence’.