Time-out to Grow Together: Sunflowers and Wellbeing at DJS

5th October 2023 00:10

Wellbeing has become a huge focus at DJS Research and back in May our dedicated Wellbeing Team had an idea to help the company come together through the planting and growing of sunflowers! This follows the launch of our first internal DJS Wellbeing Survey earlier in the year.

A pack of seeds was sent to all of our employee partners with instructions on how to plant them as well as what we sought to achieve with the initiative. The idea was simple: for all of us to plant our seeds and then share photos and comments charting our sunflower journey across our dedicated Teams wellbeing chat -- all while taking some time out and enjoying the connection with nature. It was also a great opportunity for some healthy competition too!

Each week we've been supporting 'Wellbeing Wednesday' encouraging our partners to take a longer lunch and step out into the great outdoors or do another activity that helps promote wellbeing. It was the perfect opportunity to share our sunflowers’ progress (or lack of!) with our Teams wellbeing chat springing into action, first with photos of seedlings in tiny pots on the window sill, and then as the weeks went by, green shoots were being shared, and before long, in some cases, full-on beanstalks were in bloom! The initiative generated plenty of chat and photos -- and by September, some of our plants towered way above their owners.

There were also tales shared of those that didn't make it; sunflowers lives cut dramatically short by the torrential rain and high winds of August, or plants that never quite managed to flower. There were even some that didn't quite look like sunflowers at all, although with closer investigation we uncovered that there are in fact, 70 species to speak of, and while some have huge heads made up of seeds and large petals, others are small and delicate, not growing more than a couple of feet high.

We decided to end our ‘competition’ on our company-wide visit to Chester Zoo, asking partners to submit their entries in a range of categories including tallest sunflower, most unique looking plant and best sunflower photography, to win a small prize.

Lucy Pawson, HR Manager and member of the Wellbeing Team said of the challenge:

“The sunflower seeds have ignited a lot of enthusiasm and competitive spirit (not naming names!) which is exactly what we wanted to achieve. It’s really brought the company together and has been lovely to watch them all grow via our Wellbeing Teams channel."

The partners recognised for their efforts in sunflower growing were:

Cara Rodwell, Ryoko Ward, Tina James, Danielle Taylor, Helen Menzies, Jessica Mead, Jasmine Palin, Carla Midgley, Jason Smith, Angharad and Danny Sims, our company Chairman, whose sunfllowers grew to epic proportions (see pics below).

Well done to everybody who took part, commented on the chat and shared photos of their sunflower journey. You can see some of our photos below: