Optimum workplace performance depends on taking time away from your desk, says Freshfields' Nigel Rawding

As the official legal services provider to the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, we've been fortunate to interact with many of the medal winners who shared with us the secret of their success: maintaining peak physical and mental condition and having a team of fantastic people around them.

Does such a winning formula extend beyond the sporting arena to the offices of professional services firms?

Working in a high-performance environment delivering exceptional client service can be demanding. The international dimension – working across different time zones – has its own complications.

And while it gives us hugely improved flexibility, technology can also blur the boundaries between the workplace and our home lives.

Rather than ignoring these realities, we are talking more openly about them – and we are focusing specifically on wellbeing and ways in which we can support working practices that work for everyone.

is not a 'soft' issue. As well as being on the national agenda – this year, the UK Government announced its intention to measure national wellbeing in addition to standalone measures such as GDP – there is also a strong business case to be made for investing in a wellbeing strategy. When we feel well and happy, valued and engaged, we perform at our best.

So, how can an organisation's culture evolve in a way that puts physical and mental wellbeing at its core?

We are making some small but – we hope – long-lasting changes to our working environment. We've made a significant investment in our gym and restaurant facilities, introduced a wellbeing suite that offers free health MOTs, and launched an online portal for access to personalised health advice.

The new facilities include enlarged dentist and doctor surgeries, as well as rooms dedicated to physiotherapy and other treatments.

Olympic inspiration

We also run periodic campaigns to maintain the focus on wellbeing. Most recently – inspired by our sponsorship of the 2012 Games – we invited our people to take part in a walking challenge, with an aim of walking 10,000 steps per day along the virtual route from London to Sochi, the host city of the 2014 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. More than 600 members of our London office took part. Some clocked as many as 47,000 steps per day!

The walking challenge tapped into the competitive instincts of our people, at the same time as reminding us about the health and environmental benefits of walking.

We have heard some great stories about how staff are changing their routines – from lunchtime whatever-the-weather walks, to pacing the office while on the phone to clients. We are continuing to promote simple initiatives that can have a transformative effect on our workplace culture.

Any strategy promoting wellbeing in the workplace needs to take into account workload management and resilience. Leading clinical psychologist Bill Mitchell has been working with us on maintaining workplace performance and wellbeing since 2010.

He works with groups of partners and employees in sessions that encourage dialogue about some of the choices we all make about how we work.

The aim is to help each of us feel more empowered and able to take ownership of our own work/life integration.

The sessions work because they encourage conversations that have not typically taken place before and focus on practical things that will make a difference.

Some is common sense advice, such as the importance of regular exercise, a good diet, managing energy, getting quality sleep and the importance of down-time.

Alongside this, Bill talks about specific ideas to enable more flexibility to achieve both a balanced and more focused approach to working.

He challenges us on the working habits many of us have grown into – such as using a BlackBerry as a morning alarm (and therefore responding to messages while still in bed); habitually working through lunch; responding to emails as they come in rather than in batches; and never taking time on the journey home to maybe just close our eyes and relax.

By making us aware of such habits, we are encouraged to develop a more deliberate, conscious approach to decision-making.

Great expectations

Working in any city-based organisation is going to present a particular kind of challenge to the wellbeing agenda.

Many professional people place very high expectations on themselves; they are goal orientated, perfectionist, work hard and thrive on high-pressurised and demanding environments.

Like the athletes who have achieved sporting success this summer, to continue performing at the highest level we need to maintain optimum physical and mental fitness.

Whether this means finding 30 minutes in the day to visit the gym or go for a walk, challenging the concept that every piece of work needs to be done immediately, or having team discussions about working practices, we believe our focus on wellbeing will have a long-lasting and positive effect.

Now, where did I put my pedometer?

Nigel Rawding is London people partner at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.