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Dancers stretching at the barre in the Academy's adult class. Photo Kathie Tiffany.

Help tackle employee wellbeing with new Breaktime Barre Workshops

We have launched Breaktime Barre Employee Wellbeing Workshops as an innovative new way to engage with businesses across the UK and help to address a national rise in anxiety reported in the British workforce. The virtual workshops, which are led by our Dance Education team, aim to boost workforce morale and are particularly suited to teams working from home.

Findings by the Office for National Statistics show a deterioration in all measures of personal wellbeing as a result of the pandemic. Working from home also presents challenges around ensuring that home workstations are safe and appropriate to prevent developing bad posture and other related health issues.

Our Breaktime Barre Workshops have been established in response to these issues. The workshops will: boost staff motivation; tackle isolation; get people up and moving safely to bring activity into an otherwise static working day; tackle the physical challenges of substitute home working environments; give staff a much needed moment of calm and relaxation away from the daily pressures of work and home.

In addition, these workshops offer a new partnership tool to enable us to engage with businesses across the UK. In normal times, we would open doors across our tour network for organisations to experience our work through performances, exclusive client events, brand alignment and PR opportunities. However, these opportunities have been limited this year as a result of Covid-19.

The first Breaktime Barre Workshop took place today with Emerald Publishing who said: ‘Employee wellbeing is so important to us as a business and we strive to ensure that we provide workshops and activities throughout the year to specifical promote good mental and physical wellbeing. We are absolutely thrilled to be able to offer a workshop with Northern Ballet to our employees which can be done virtually from the comfort of their own home. We recognise that we have a responsibility as an employer to encourage and help facilitate a good sense of wellbeing, especially with all of our employees working from home.’

Northern Ballet’s Breaktime Barre Workshops are available for groups from 5 to 95 people and include a number of other partnership benefits. For more information contact Zoë Walker, Head of Development by emailing zoe.walker@northernballet.com

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