Wellness Week at Bellmont Partners

When Bri­an Bell­mont start­ed Bell­mont Part­ners in 1996, he had a clear vision to become a peo­ple-first orga­ni­za­tion, sup­port­ing the clients, col­leagues and com­mu­ni­ties with whom he’d work. Near­ly three decades lat­er, that approach con­tin­ues to dri­ve what we do every day.

In count­less ways Bell­mont Part­ners cul­ture means cel­e­brat­ing the whole per­son, meet­ing our team as indi­vid­u­als and encour­ag­ing every­one to prac­tice a work-life bal­ance. And a huge part of that is incor­po­rat­ing struc­tures to put that phi­los­o­phy into practice.

Bell­mont Part­ners’ Health & Well­ness Com­mit­tee looks at cre­ative ways the com­mit­tee can prac­ti­cal­ly sup­port the work-life bal­ance we encour­age through­out the agency. This year, we added a “Well­ness Week,” a week ded­i­cat­ed to focus­ing on dif­fer­ent ele­ments of what a work-life bal­ance can mean in the work­place. We also want­ed to draft a plan with inten­tion­al­i­ty. Keen­ly aware of the wide­spread cul­tur­al use of “well­ness,” and how its overuse (in some cas­es) ren­ders it mean­ing­less, we asked: What does well­ness mean for our team in 2024?

As we brain­stormed what “well­ness” meant to us and what it could look like dur­ing a work week, sev­er­al com­mon themes emerged. We want­ed com­mu­ni­ty, fun, nour­ish­ment and time. We want­ed to spend time togeth­er and build com­mu­ni­ty, we want­ed oppor­tu­ni­ties to laugh and relax, we want­ed fresh foods and space to enjoy an inter­rup­tion-free (as pos­si­ble) work­day to get heads down into projects.

After weeks of plan­ning, we saw our vision come to life.

As a com­pa­ny that offers sig­nif­i­cant flex­i­bil­i­ty (with flex­i­bil­i­ty as one of its core val­ues), we already get to expe­ri­ence (and are encour­aged to prac­tice) opti­miz­ing well­ness dur­ing a work week and through­out the entire year. But this week was meant to be some­thing special.

On Mon­day, we kicked off the week by col­lec­tive­ly bring­ing in ingre­di­ents for a make-your-own smooth­ie bar. Team mem­bers brought in blenders, berries, bananas, spinach and so much more for our team to start their week with a refresh­ing ener­gy boost and some kitchen camaraderie.

On Tues­day, we took things off-cam­pus and out­side for a team hap­py hour at a local brewery.

Wednes­day, Bell­mont offered a small but spe­cial treat where team mem­bers could be reim­bursed for a cof­fee or tea of their choos­ing (trans­fer­able to the most con­ve­nient day of their week).

On Thurs­day, the team gath­ered in rous­ing spir­its at Tar­get Field to see the Min­neso­ta Twins face off against the New York Yan­kees! Despite the out­come of the game, we had a blast enjoy­ing the late-spring sun­ny weath­er, sta­di­um snacks and attempts to get on the Jum­botron. Fol­low­ing the excite­ment, we walked over to Britt’s Pub for some patio refresh­ments, more laugh­ter and live­ly dis­cus­sions about inter­gen­er­a­tional trends. Did you know a fit­ted jean-jack­et is a dead-give­away for millennials+?

To wrap up this spe­cial week, we had “No Meet­ing Fri­day,” meant to open sched­ules for our team to dig into projects and research unin­ter­rupt­ed. Though we can’t – and don’t want to – add more hours to the day, we can carve out some ded­i­cat­ed time with no interruptions.

We are proud to uphold a high stan­dard for our work, and while we seek to exceed expec­ta­tions, we also want to show up as the best ver­sion of our­selves to get the job done.