Patrick from Quintessential Consulting

Name

Patrick Albina

Job title

Director & Founder

Organisation

Quintessential Consulting

What are you/your organisation currently focussing on in terms of workplace health and wellbeing?

We need different ways to do things as the complexity of today’s workplace is becoming increasingly stressful, with managers struggling to keep up with twenty-four hour communications, fast moving technology, multiple stakeholders, unshared meanings, cultural diversity as well as ambiguous lines of accountability.

What aspect of workplace health and wellbeing does your organisation do well in?

As a Design Thinking Innovator, I specialise in complex problems and I work with organisations to address persistent issues, using a range of innovative approaches that disrupt conventional patterns of thinking to achieve better outcomes. By disrupting conventional patterns of thinking, I enable my clients to see and act in different ways, revealing new possibilities that are otherwise unavailable in the status quo.

What’s your biggest challenge working in workplace health and wellbeing?

Workplace health and wellbeing is often seen as ‘nice-to-have’, therefore organisations only tend to address the need in a reactive manner, and only after things have gone wrong.  Being proactive is so much more effective, providing organisations with more enduring and meaningful benefits.

How does WayAhead Workplaces add value to your organisations health and wellbeing program?

WayAhead Workplaces connects me with a range of like-minded people who share similar challenges.  Tapping into their ideas and experience, I am able to see problems through different lenses, thereby enhancing my own service offering.

How do you deal with stress?

Dr Adam Fraser talks about “The Third Space”, a concept that helps you transition from one activity to another.  I use the opportunity when travelling between clients (whether by public transport or by walking) to enter the Third Space and prepare myself for what lies ahead, even if it is preparing for home.

What are the key issues and considerations for people in workplace health and wellbeing roles?

We need to practice ‘drinking our own champagne’ so that we are in top shape to deliver or services and not be subject to the same conditions that we are trying to resolve.

How do you switch off from work?

That’s easy…my kids hold me accountable, so when I am with them, I am really with them.

What is your best time saving tip?

Turn off the TV.

What do you think the future of work health and wellness programs look like?

In future, we won’t need health and wellness programs because the guiding principles will be seamlessly integrated into our lives and working environment, but I don’t think that I’ll see this in my lifetime!