Bowls of fruit have replaced the biscuit tins at Beaumont Tiles Fyshwick and Mitchell and the staff are loving it.

This small action is just one step that award winning franchisee Bernadette Jones and her son Huw have taken to lay good health foundations for the team. Bernadette signed up to a free ACT government service, the Healthier Work program six months ago and has reaped the rewards of a happier team.

“It makes your business flow better because you bond together, anything that can make it more of a friendly, family environment is good,” she says.

This is a family business headed up by Bernadette and her husband, with their two sons and a daughter-in-law. They opened the Fyshwick stores eight years ago and the second outlet, Mitchell, is now four years old.

“We split the roles across the two stores and each son runs a store,” explains Bernadette.

“We also belong to Family Business Australia, it helps us with family dynamics; in business this is always a bit hard. It helps with interactions with family and moving the business on to the next generation. I belong to a breakout or forum group of about 12 people from all kinds of business – gardening, accountancy, building – and we can do budgets and business plans.”

This sharing and mentoring is available too within the Beaumont Tiles network.

“I also belong to the franchise committee,” says Bernadette. “Beaumont is very proactive in getting company stores and business to work together, and we’re always talking to each other.”

The network runs a  bi-annual national conference but each year there is a state conference to which franchisees can bring ideas for business development and ways to improve efficiciencies.

Healthier Work will be brought to the table at this conference, says Bernadette. “We’ve put it forward so other people can do the same.”

As a result of embracing this flexible program, which provides solutions for different environments and working needs, the business has benefited from a drop in the number of sick days among staff, and a happier spirit throughout the team.

The healthier measures include providing staff with passes to do strength fit classes at a local gym, supplying nicotine replacements to help smokers quit, and organising a team golf day.

Bernadette explains the importance of engaging the team in this initiative:

“If people are healthy and well they don’t take sick days. It improves our lifestyle, they come to work. If people are happy and healthy, their personas are healthy and it rubs off on customers, it’s a better sales environment. Anything that is a healthy choice is good for everyone.”