What makes us feel good at work?

Well-being at work: empty words vs real life

In the beggining of becoming and adult and start working, it’s always a common topic around friends what their workplace is like, what their colleagues are like, how they spend their day in the workplace, what keeps them there and what keeps them running away. That’s why well-being has become a major area of research.

For mateco, employee wellbeing has been an inescapable issue for years, as research has shown that employee wellbeing is a key driver of productivity, employee satisfaction and long-term employee retention.

What used to be extra is now standard

At all three mateco centres – the headquarters in Szigetszentmiklós, the regional centres in Győr and Debrecen – employee well-being starts with meeting basic comfort needs: because coffee, tea, water and milk are now “basic”.

Going beyond this, it is important as an employer to create a supportive environment where employees feel comfortable and can thrive. Of course, it’s also important that they love what they do and want to be productive, as this is essential for their work to be high quality and effective.

The bottom line is that it’s up to both sides to make it work…

This is the basis of consciously designed, organised and delivered programmes that we expect to make everything so much better…
But how can it be that research shows that employee wellbeing programmes in the workplace don’t deliver results?
Let’s see when corporate well-being efforts are on the wrong track!

THE SAME PROGRAMME IS NOT THE SAME FOR EVERYONE!

Just like at home: in a family, not all family members are equally satisfied with the programme that is currently running... to make sure that everyone has a good time, you always have to prioritize the needs of other family members when choosing the programme. This is how it will work well! The same is true in the workplace: taking into account the needs of different groups of employees will achieve the expected result, while ignoring them all the time is guaranteed to cause frustration. At mateco, this works by focusing on different areas in the team building programme organised in the early autumn of each year.

ONE PROGRAMME IS NOT ENOUGH!

It is also a basic truth that programmes that are embedded in the corporate culture and have a long-term impact will be effective and will be able to achieve interest and efficiency. It is clear which initiatives have been successful - keep these, and which programmes/parts of programmes have caused employee rejection, disengagement, disaffection - don't push these further.

FEW PEOPLE PARTICIPATE IN THE PROGRAMMES?

If we clearly explain why it will be beneficial, useful and even very good to have them there, colleagues will be more willing to come! The organisational structure of mateco means that colleagues work at great geographical distances from each other, many don't know each other at all, and often don't meet until the next programme. As much as we like to have a good time at all our events, we have to accept that we can't choose a time that suits all our staff! The best we can do is respect the time away, but we do try to include everyone in sharing or recreating the atmosphere by taking photos.

We have very successful legacy programmes and we are very proud of them!

As a good practice of mateco to get to know each other, the teams for the programmes are consciously and carefully put together so that people from all over the country and from different areas are in the same team, so they have the opportunity to get to know each other while working together in teams to solve playful tasks.

The interest in the annual two-day team-building event is further enhanced by the exemplary active participation of leaders – the role of leaders is key to the success of well-being programmes. If they do not support or actively participate in these programmes, employees will not be interested and engaged.

In mateco’s corporate culture, the direct contact and tone of voice with senior managers can go a long way to ensuring that regular team-building programmes for employee wellbeing allow both managers and employees to spend time relaxing together and to have experiences that will be remembered.
In mateco’s view, rapid growth should not be a reason for a feeling of alienation and detachment.

start of the year party

We also have a traditional start-of-year party. Mateco is kind to families by not burdening their festive schedules with another company event at the end of the year, but rather celebrating a new beginning. Here again, we follow the tried and tested recipe: hear from our leaders and credible sources, celebrate our anniversaries, have dinner together and then party like only we can!

Santa Claus party

During the year, we also have smaller but also traditional programmes that promote employee well-being: a Santa Claus party for the little ones; a naughty sweater day and competition, with a prize-giving ceremony and a hearty “batyus” dinner.
At the beginning of the year, we treat our guests to freshly made and baked donuts with homemade jams. This few minutes during the day is also a much-anticipated activity for the mateco community.

Family afternoon

If it’s summer, it’s family afternoon! Family is one of the pillars of all our lives: we open the doors of the national centre and welcome all ages from 0-99 to get to know the machines, play ping-pong, shoot hoops, chat, eat and drink. It is a great challenge and difficulty to generate enough interest in this event organised at the end of the working week, and to attract staff from Győr and Debrecen to this programme. We are thinking about what organisational changes could make the programme more successful…

Extra commitments: social responsibility in a variety of ways

Mateco’s employee wellbeing programmes regularly include those that are part of our corporate social responsibility.
We have organised a successful tree planting, participated in the Shoebox Christmas fundraising programme, spent a whole year collecting donations for the Tűzoltó utcai Gyermekklinika Betegeiért Alapítvány, supported the beautification of our neighbourhoods in several Colour City projects and the organisers of the Györkőc festival can also count on mateco’s lifting machines.

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Happy communities = thriving mental health

Workplace communities have a significant impact on workplace experience, productivity and job satisfaction. The retaining power and importance of workplace communities is indisputable and more decisive than we think. In addition to providing social support, it also helps engagement and increases motivation and innovation.
We understand and feel the importance of small and large company events, but we also need to make room for lunch and coffee in our everyday lives!

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Garden atmosphere and a few quiet words

At mateco, although the industrial environment limits the possibilities, we have managed to create some meeting points for one-to-one conversations – such as the SilentBoxes and the roofed garden table and bench combination, which our small communities enjoy using for lunch and relaxation from spring to autumn.

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Little parties? Why not?

That this is a living community is also demonstrated by the fact that occasionally there are requests for programmes in small communities that aim at recreation and community building: such grassroots organisation led to the first mateco fishing tournament in 2025 and the first “pig slaughter” organised by our colleagues: the raw material arrived in a processable state, which our colleagues processed into sausages and sausages – seasoned and stuffed together – in a very friendly atmosphere, as the pictures show.

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Learning opportunities

We believe that long-term success is based on a continuously developing, skilled workforce, supported by an inclusive approach and a supportive working environment. We pay particular attention to the quality of our professional training, and we apply technological innovations in our training. New to mateco’s employee wellbeing programme is an internal trainer training and talent programme, in addition to digital internal training materials to help new employees settle in faster!

Alongside mental health: help to solve health problems

A new addition to mateco’s employee wellbeing programme is Medicare Health Insurance, which helps with accessing medical care and attending screenings and solving health problems as they arise.

Our communication channels for a sense of belonging

We communicate through our monthly internal newsletter, which includes corporate and regional news, highlights of past events and announcements of upcoming programmes. To make sure everyone gets the content, we also use the common Share Point interface and the corporate shared email address.

Mateco’s HR strategy focuses on employee satisfaction, development and social responsibility. Our goal is to maintain an inspiring workplace where everyone finds their place and actively contributes to our collective success.