In this episode of The Business Startup Podcast by binary10, James Blake, Steve Smales, and Danny White sit down to discuss a topic that sits at the heart of any growing startup: staff wellbeing.

From remote working and long project hours to staying connected as a team, they share honest reflections, practical team challenge initiatives, and the culture they’re building at binary10 to ensure everyone feels supported both professionally and personally.

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In this episode, we discussed:

• Why well-being should be a priority for startups (and founders too) 00:45

• The feedback we received from a few people about our podcast. 01:23

• How the Walk for Good step challenge encourages movement and supports charity 05:00

• How binary10 keeps everyone connected through meetups, socials, and open communication 10:55

• The importance of building a culture where people feel safe to speak up, 11:30

• The mental well-being side of project delivery - having each other’s backs 12:00

• Upcoming binary10 social events and traditions 14:47

EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION:

Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by an AI tool that did its best, but it's never met different British accents it could fully decode. Expect a few funny mistakes. Enjoy!

[00:00] - James B

Hi there, welcome to the binary 10 podcast. My name is James Blake. I'm the CEO of binary10.

[00:06] - Steve S

And my name is Steve Smales, and I am the Chief Operating Officer. Welcome to the series of podcasts where we like to talk about all things data migration related.

[00:16] - James B

And also, we'll talk about the human side of running a business.

So we hope you enjoy.

[00:21]- James B

Well, here we are again. Another podcast, data migration podcast. It's going to be great. um although saying that it's not actually data migration that's the core topic today um we're going to continue the the really good series we're doing on you know running a business you know we we did a podcast uh on startups you know focusing on on how we started up and i think today we want to get into the well-being of the staff you know including us um but also the members of staff we've got and even our

subcontractors right the people that we work with that's right um so really keen to get into this because this is super important and i think more because you know we are a small company that's growing You know, we're not, you know, a big organization that's got, you know, lots of facilities and

events and things that happen for their staff. But I think we're really trying to promote this. And I think it's super important, especially in the modern world that we live in, right, where we all tend to work from home. And, yeah, it's a bit of a different landscape. So, yeah, keen to get into this one. But, but, hot off the press, before we do, obviously, we've been doing a few of these podcasts now. And we've been getting some feedback. Now, of course, I've taken out all the negative feedback,

which there was quite a bit of. No, there wasn't. No, not that I can see. People are polite. Let's put it that way. But no, we've got some feedback from a couple of people that myself Steve and I will run through, just to give them a bit of a shout out and also to respond. So let's go. The first one we've

had in is from a Martin from Worcestershire. Thank you, Martin, for listening to the podcast. He's put... He enjoys it and finds the content fantastic, but can he have more Michael Caine impressions, Steve?

[01:58] - Steve S

More Michael Caine impressions? Well, to answer you, Martin, your question directly, NO. Yeah, I got some feedback from Danny from Sussex. Actually, you're from Sussex, aren't you, Danny?

[02:14] - Danny W

Yeah, it's funny. Isn't it funny?

[02:16] - Steve S

And Danny said, I really, really enjoyed the podcast. Great content. Really, really good. Absolutely loved it. But please, whatever you do, don't do any impressions. So that was Danny.

[02:26]- James B

Fair play, Danny. I think there's a common theme going on here, isn't there?

[02:29] - Steve S

Yeah.

I don't know where they're getting this idea of impressions from, do you?

[02:31]- James B

No, no. I've got a feeling maybe there's an impressions podcast coming in the future. Hopefully not, but let's see. We'll think about that one.

[02:37] - Danny W

Well. Martin can watch it on his own, and I won't.

[02:31]- James B

That's probably a sensible choice.

[02:43] - Steve S

He probably will as well.

[02:44]- James B

Definitely will. Okay, and then I don't know if this is a true person, but... But Colin from Kent. I'm going to be careful with that one. Yeah, I was going to say, don't want to get that one wrong. He simply put, life-changing. Yeah, I don't know. He must have been smoking something funny, I think. Well, you know, I mean, you know, really, really appreciate the support from Colin from Kent. And yeah, you know, we want to know more. Why was it life-changing?

[03:09] - Danny W

Does he mean life-changing in a positive or a negative way?

[03:11] - Steve S

Well, yeah, actually, that's probably a good point.

[03:12]- James B

I think we need to find out. I mean, the concern here is that maybe he's been on an ERP programme and, you know. It went a bit south or something else. We'll have to do a phone call one day and invite Colin on. We want to know more about that one.

[03:25] - Steve S

Yeah, I think I've got one more. Let's see if I can find it now. Oh, this one. Yeah. So really love the podcast. I really like the guy with the strange man bun. He's cute and funny. The one with the beard talks too much. I'm not sure who that's from. Oh, that's from Steve from Surrey.

[03:45]- James B

I was just about to say no comment on that one. Um brilliant okay well there's a there's a there's a few bit of fun feedback there and and and we really appreciate that so yeah please keep feeding back um you know and and anything you want to you know you want us to talk about whether that is data migration specifically um or if you'd like to come on the show and you're you know you're you're heavily involved in the types of technology programmes we do um you know we'd love to hear from you so yeah please do so let's get into it then i think um this is really important subject and uh and it's great uh obviously that we're going to discuss it and that we've got Danny that's come along to join us today so. Well-being Steve amongst ourselves and amongst our staff, and you know our partners and colleagues.

[04:21] - Steve S

yeah so um you know it's very important when you're starting a business you start to recruit people but also for your own you know the business starts as well you need to actually start about you know start thinking about well-being and it's very you know very tempting when you're starting a new business and you you throw all your energies into it you can actually end up doing really long hours um and I think with us because we've started recruiting more over the years We've actually got a responsibility to look after our staff, our contractors. So we've been thinking more and more, particularly over the last year, about staff wellbeing. So I know you're trying to encourage me to have more holidays and things like that and not work 16 hour days and things like that but yeah we've been trying to think of initiatives for how we can help ourselves and help our staff do that and one of the sort of initiatives we've come up with is a walk for life challenge we're calling it so I mean Danny White welcome our project director yes great to have you back.

[05:18] - Danny W

It's great to be back!

[05:19] - Steve S

Yeah, you've been involved in this walk for life thing. How do you find it, and what do you know? Why do you think it's important?

[05:24] - Danny W

It's really good. Right. And firstly, I think the way the world's changed post-COVID work-wise and, you know, working from home so much, one of the key things, and I'm guilty of it, I'm sure you are, is it's easy to sit at home and have you set up, get comfy, work and not get up and walk away from your desk. When we worked together previously, we worked in other places together. And, you know, there's always that point when you're all sitting in a room together working, you say, oh,

anyone fancy a cup of tea? And you all get up stretch your legs walk to the kitchen make a cup of tea come back carry on working yeah when you're at home it's easy to just get engrossed and you know have a whole morning where I'm just sitting at the desk or and i actually had lunch yeah as well yeah work through lunch and that's just and you just slide into that yeah which is a dangerous thing it's physically for you know for your for our well-being to sit in a chair all day is as bad as sort of smoking cigarettes and allegedly i don't know i don't smoke but So I think it's really important. So this particular one that we're doing now, I think, is key because the more walking we do, the more we're raising money for charity. Yeah. And therefore, you feel that there's an incentive to get up more often, go and have a walk after work as well. I tend to personally, I'll use it as a bookend to the day. So, you know, I'll talk to the wife and we'll say, right. You know we both finish 5:36-ish let's go for a walk and you know we'll make some money for the charity build the pot more importantly i want

to get higher than Steve in the chart it's pretty close at the moment I'd say i think there's three of us there's me steve and a guy Kev who are neck and neck so.

[07:10]- James B

I'd like to say that I was involved in that but I'm not and I have tried but but just take a step back because I think it's really important this so this this walk for good that we're doing so this was an initiative you know and actually it was born out of us all coming together we all all the staff uh our subcontractors partners all came together into the office a couple of months ago fantastic day a really good day and we were talking about you know what can we do all together as a team because

we're all in different parts of the country but what can bring us together and so what we're doing is we're doing this walk for good challenge literally whereby every day we track our steps you know we try and get as many steps as we can and for the amount of steps we do i think it's something it doesn't sound that great i think it's like a pound for every 10,000 steps which sounds pretty feeble but it's amazing how i think we've got about 20 plus people doing it yeah and the amount of steps

that they're doing is going up and up, and essentially we're going to then you know provide that money to a charity of whoever wins uh the walk for good challenge is a choice, so you know, and the reality is it hasn't been for everybody, there are a couple of people that didn't want to do it, but for the

most people they've they've sort of embraced it now i'll admit i've embraced it i'm my dog's not happy he's a bulldog and i take him on 20 minute walks and i've been taking him on 40 minute walks and he's been flagging i had to carry him home a couple of times um but that's definitely got my steps up but i don't know how you guys do it because i can't seem to surpass like 10000 a day you know that's I'm around 10000 10000 a day but some people are doing like 20-25000 a day

[08:32] - Steve S

I did 37000 well, but there you go. Basically just a pub crawl it's it's fantastic actually, because all this, yeah, i thought, where should i walk to, and I think pub and oh i can't just do one pub because that wouldn't do that wouldn't be many steps would it so so yeah it's it's actually um done wonders for my um for my liver.

[08:51] - Danny W

Is it also because the walk back is wonky

[08:55]- James B

I was gonna say yeah twice as many steps, yeah, I was gonna say

But no, but what a great initiative, right, and I think, um, you know we've only got we've only got five days left, haven't we?

We'll we'll we'll probably maybe say on the next podcast what we've achieved but we're doing really well at the minute and raising a lot of money for charity so you know it's fantastic isn't it it's you know we love to be charitable but also it's good for people right it's forcing them to walk more it definitely is me obviously i'm still not doing enough um but no i think it's um.

[09:19] - Danny W

I think it's really good as well. The important thing is not that you know we joke about I'm gonna competition and that, but actually it's not about that, there are people who you know, and myself included, some days it's I did 2000.

And I look at it, and actually, what it does is it flags to me that you know that's a bad day, yeah, I shouldn't have been at the desk as much as I did, you know, I needed to break the day up and take it for walks and stuff, it doesn't

[09:42] - Steve S

it does actually give you that focus to think oh i need to do my steps today yeah yeah because otherwise you just wouldn't and and like you said earlier you just end up sitting yeah sitting at your desk and not doing anything so yeah it's always in the back of your mind that you've got to do it and that's that's good it does encourage you. To actually get up and do something, so please.

[09:57]- James B

so proud of the team i think it's been a great effort from everyone i mean there are some interesting days on our tracker where there's like you know 100 steps not sure what happened on that day um but you know but but we can question that but i think no i think and and just coming back to a point you made danny about um you know just just how we behave at home as well so i think you know what what's good there is yes we're going to do that we're finishing off that walk good challenge i think that spurred more conversation we want to do

three peaks challenges you know everyone's you know coming together more as a team you know there's so many so many benefits but i was thinking about what you said and actually you know i don't know if other people feel this but i find myself not necessarily working late because i'm working six hour days but because you're at home sometimes you can have more breaks in the day but then you you have to catch up later so actually i'm finding that a lot of the time I work from home, I'm kind of... working all the time but just with smaller breaks you know which which i know isn't good and you know i get a lot of challenges from my wife and all those sorts of things and definitely trying to do better there, but I wanted to come on to you know we've talked a bit there about the physicalities and making sure that we're moving and doing all the right things, and we're definitely trying to Promote that, but what about the mental side of it as well, because I think that you know we don't See each other as much as colleagues, you know, in the office space. That's right. You know, I think we've done a few things, haven't we, to try and aid that. We're doing like monthly newsletters, like better communication. You know, we're trying to get more people into the office, join our podcasts, you know, all these sorts of things. But, you know, some of those initiatives around, you know, supporting that mental well-being, making sure that we're talking to each other, that we're, you know, that people have got, you know, someone to come and speak to that's not related to work.

[11:29] - Steve S

Exactly. Yeah. And I think we just need to foster that environment where people... can feel like they can talk out if they're struggling and and that's and we'll always try and do that our door's always open we've always said that uh and the other thing we do is we have regular meetups with with all the staff and contractors uh normally followed by a social event as well yeah so we did you know social events are really important uh not just in terms of team building but it's also like a reward for

For you know, we know a lot of our people go through hard times on the project and long hours, so it's good to reward people and make them know that their efforts are being recognised.

[12:02]- James B

Value. Yeah, absolutely. And I think, and Danny, obviously, you can talk from experience as well. Like, you know, every time that, you know, we achieve a go-live or we, you know, we put a client sort of system live, complete the data migration, you know, have you seen that? Have you felt that within binary 10? And what have you found, like a, you know, that's really worked for you in terms of, you know, your value?

[12:26] - Danny W

Well, it absolutely does work. The open door, people at the end of a phone just to talk to because...It's the nature of the beast with project work. There's always a go-live, there's out-of-hours work, there's weekend work. That's, you know, that's the norm, okay, for projects. But whilst you accept that, it's still, it's nice to know someone's got your back, that you guys are there, we talk to each other, the three of us. But the guys that work for me on the project, I'd like to think they, you know, they know I'm there at the end of teams, at the end of the phone, they can talk to me. It doesn't have to be about work. If they're struggling or they've got something going on, I'd like to think they'll just

pick up the phone. And I think Binary 10's got that culture. I definitely feel that. I don't feel like anyone would be worried about opening up on a phone call to you guys, myself. So yeah, I think it's good.

[13:20]- James B

Brilliant to hear. And I think, you know, for anyone listening, you know, we would love more feedback on this. This is a topic we're really passionate about. If you can tell us what's worked well for you or... you know anything that you could recommend that we can bring into our organization or share with our partner organizations then let's just do it because it's you know it's it's so important you know we all have separate lives, we all have our own families but i think you know as a as a business as a company you know me and Steve feel passionate about this and i know you know you've seen that Danny is making sure that you know we do give that attention yeah you know to to

our people and try and enjoy what we do, you know and socialise together, so yeah, I mean, because I mean.

[13:58] - Steve S

People who work with us they're not just colleagues, but they're friends as well. And we want to look after our friends, don't we? So it's really important.

[14:04] - Danny W

I've actually, it's funny, I've had this conversation outside of work with friends outside of work. And they've said, Oh, how's your new job, new role going? You know, you knew the guys that you've gone to. And I was like, yeah, I said, but actually, regardless of whether I knew them or not, I think it's about someone having your back. And that phrase, I've really genuinely, I've used that a lot. I've said, Oh, I really feel like they've got my back. Yeah and and I've worked places before where I haven't felt like that, and it's not pleasant.

[14:31]- James B

well and like you say post covid if people haven't got your back and you're on your own and you're working from home it you know it's it's not a nice environment is it so yeah but i mean well and to put a spin on that then so i think that's some really good chat there and uh you know and i'm sure that will

resonate with a lot of people But we've got our next social event coming up quite soon. I think it's Saturday. We're off to Sandown Park. It's become a yearly tradition, hasn't it? Yeah.

[14:56] - Steve S

We do enjoy it, don't we? Mainly the food, I think.

[14:59]- James B

It's the food, but it's also seeing the system that Steve brings to the day because Steve's got a little bit of history about calculating the winning horses, and it has paid dividends on occasion, hasn't it?

[15:12] - Steve S

It's six out of seven one year, didn't we? So that's quite good.

[15:15]- James B

We've got to be careful what we say. We might have a bit of a following.

[15:21] - Steve S

Yeah, not six out of seven winners, not six out of seven winners are six out of seven replaced

[15:22] - Danny W

Is this the point where we say gamble responsibly

[15:25]- James B

yeah something like that yeah absolutely my tips absolutely gamble responsibly but no we're really looking forward to that one and i love that day because you know it's a great opportunity for us to just all try and forget about work you know a lot of the conversation obviously does hang around that but no no it's a really good day and the people there at sandown park are great uh and look after us yeah so.

[15:42] - Steve S

Everyone who's ever been on that, really, you know, really enjoys it, don't they?

[15:45]- James B

Yeah, yeah, no, fantastic. And yeah, and I'm sure, you know, we've got lots of other events happening this year as well. And

when we have them, you'll see lots of pictures, hopefully nice and sensible, and, you know, full of fun for those days. But no, that's been really insightful. I think that's been a great conversation on, you know, the importance of well-being. And yeah, we'll continue. We'll continue to do it.

[16:03] - Steve S

Well, yeah, we'll continue and keep you posted and probably a follow-up podcast at some point.

[16:05]- James B

I'm sure there will be. Yeah, there's lots more. Lots more to talk about. But no, thank you for that. That was fantastic. So, yeah, I'll see you next time, Danny.

[16:12] - Danny W

Yes.

Thanks for having me again

[16:05]- James B

See you next time, Steve!

[16:20] - Steve S

we really hope you enjoyed this episode

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