The Architecture Of Better Communication Across Wellness, HR & L&D With Bec Healey

Walk me through how you started your career in HR, L&D and how it led you to create Komorebi Coaching.

Going back to the beginning, I fell into HR accidentally. I left school and went straight into work because, looking back, I didn’t fully understand what all my options were. I didn’t have a huge amount of guidance around career paths, and I’d already been working part-time jobs from a young age. I was always quite self-motivated and eager to get out into the world and start building something for myself, but I also genuinely loved learning.

I ended up doing a modern apprenticeship, and it just so happened to be within a personnel function, which is what HR was often called back then. So my career started almost by accident, but when I reflect on it now, it was aligned with who I am as a person because it was fundamentally a people-focused role.

I developed my HR career mainly within the generalist space for most of my career, although there was always a strong organisational development element running through the roles I held. A lot of my work involved transformation programmes, leading people through change, supporting culture shifts, and helping organisations navigate complex transitions. But as a HR generalist, you’re spinning a huge number of plates at once. Learning and development was always part of the agenda, but you’re often relying on specialist teams to support and partner with you. You do some of the work yourself, but realistically you never have as much time as you’d like to dedicate to it.

As my career progressed, I realised I was becoming increasingly drawn toward organisational development and learning. I then completed my Level 7 Executive Coaching qualification because coaching is such a big part of being an HR business partner supporting leaders. I wanted to deepen that skill set properly. 

What I loved about coaching was how powerful it can be when it comes to behavioural change. If you’re coaching well, you’re giving people space to think clearly, reflect honestly, and become accountable for how they move forward. You’re partnering with them in a way that helps them access more of their potential.

Toward the latter part of my corporate career, I stepped into a more specialist role within talent and organisational development. I became the Global Talent and OD Director for an American-owned company, and that role focused heavily on global learning and development, executive coaching programmes, talent management, succession planning, and leadership development. One of the major programmes I was working on before I left was an executive coaching and mentoring initiative that we implemented across the business to support succession planning and key talent development.

There were definitely parts of the role that aligned strongly with who I am, but like many corporate environments, there were also politics, shifting priorities, and constant adaptation to changing business demands. Over time, I stopped feeling fulfilled. My team and I would put enormous energy into programmes that the executive team fully supported in principle, but then implementation would stall. Things would get paused or shelved because other priorities took over.

A lot of the frustration came from the fact that HR often acts as the architect and partner, but you can’t implement culture change alone. You need operational buy-in, and you need the wider organisation to integrate and support the work. In that particular culture, it was happening too often for me. I felt like my team and I were pouring huge amounts of time and energy into initiatives that ultimately weren’t making the impact I knew they could make. There were a number of reasons for this such as team dynamics, the organisational culture and the huge amount of change that was ongoing right across the global organisation.

For years, I’d had this distant idea in the back of my mind that maybe one day, much later in life, I might start my own coaching business. It was always framed as something for the future. But eventually I started asking myself, “Why not now?”’ I wanted more balance while my daughter was still young, and I also had the perspective of having four stepchildren and seeing just how quickly children grow up. I didn’t want to wake up ten years later wishing I’d been more present.

So I made the decision to leave corporate life. It wasn’t easy at all. It took me a long time to reach that point. Looking back now, especially after writing a chapter in a co-authored book released on International Women’s Day about rediscovering myself after motherhood, I’ve realised that leaving almost felt like breaking up with a version of myself I’d been for many years. 

At the same time, I’d personally started exploring different wellbeing modalities because my role had been incredibly stressful. I was juggling a global leadership position alongside family life, and I’d begun turning toward practices that genuinely helped me. I knew I wanted Komorebi Coaching to have wellbeing woven into its foundation. I didn’t want it to simply be a coaching business. I wanted it to take a more holistic approach to supporting people as human beings.

I think modern culture conditions us to constantly do. We rarely stop. That relentless pace doesn’t always bring out the best in people, and increasingly we’re seeing burnout become more common. Some of that may be because people are finally talking about it more openly, but I also think the sheer pace of change in the modern world is different to previous generations.

Nature and walking became a huge part of my own wellbeing journey. I’ve always loved walking and being outdoors, and I wanted that to become central to how I offered coaching. When I first launched the business, walking coaching was a major part of how I positioned myself. I also became increasingly interested in the importance of connection and creating spaces where people could think differently.

Part of that stemmed from the fact that my global role was largely remote. I wasn’t travelling as much as perhaps I should have been because I didn’t want to constantly be away from home. My employer was understanding, but it meant I spent huge amounts of time sitting behind a desk, and due to the long hours I was working, I realised how unnatural that lifestyle felt. Getting outdoors and moving became one of the things that genuinely made me feel like I was coming home to myself again.

I started approaching work differently. Instead of sitting at a desk trying to cognitively force ideas, I’d take myself out for walks to think, reflect, and brainstorm. Sometimes I’d walk and then sit in a café afterwards to journal or map out ideas. Even meetings with myself became something I intentionally changed the environment around. That’s now something I also encourage businesses to think about, how the environments we work in shape the quality of our thinking and creativity.

Sound therapy became another major influence. I found it incredibly beneficial personally in terms of nervous system regulation and relaxation. I now facilitate sound baths and integrate sound therapy into retreats, wellbeing events, and my women’s leadership immersion programme. I believe that when people are more regulated and less stuck in fight-or-flight mode, they make better decisions, solve problems more effectively, and access more creativity.

I know sound therapy can sound quite ‘woo-woo’ to some people, but I think there’s absolutely a place for these modalities when used appropriately. It’s not about one-size-fits-all solutions. Different approaches resonate with different people.

I also trained as a Reiki practitioner. Reiki is essentially energy work focused on relaxation and nervous system regulation. I initially explored it purely for my own self-care, but once I experienced the benefits firsthand, I became increasingly interested in how these modalities could support people more holistically within coaching and organisational settings.

I’ve recently become much clearer on the direction of the business and recently completed another coaching certification called Multiple Brain Integration Techniques, or MBIT. I came across MBIT through a period of deep self-reflection while preparing for a speaking engagement. I started mapping out ideas around my own experiences and realised I was unintentionally arriving at concepts that already existed within MBIT. That fascinated me.

MBIT focuses on working with not just the head brain, but also the heart brain and gut brain. There’s extensive research around the neural networks and intelligence that exist within these systems. What MBIT explores is how these three ‘brains’ work together.

The process involves techniques like balanced breathing to bring people into a coherent state and then guiding them through structured reflection using the intelligence of the head, heart, and gut. The idea is that when these systems are aligned, people operate from their highest expression creatively and compassionately and courageously.

The head brain relates to creativity and cognition, the heart brain to compassion and values, and the gut brain to courage, intuition, and mobilisation. Fear and resistance often sit within the gut brain, so part of the process is helping people identify and move through those fears.

What excites me about MBIT is how naturally it integrates everything I’ve been drawn toward. It feels like the final piece of the puzzle for how I want to work with clients. It’s a simple but powerful framework for helping people access deeper alignment, clearer decision-making, and meaningful behavioural change.

All of those modalities seem perfect to be woven together for a word like komorebi. I’ve always loved Japanese culture, and what I like about that word is that it’s essentially untranslatable in English. The best equivalent refers to the dappled light filtering through leaves and the shifting patterns it creates.

How did you originally come across that word and why did it feel like the right way to describe your overall coaching approach? 

I can’t remember the first time I came across the word komorebi, but the meaning behind it resonated with me immediately because of that connection to nature. More than anything, though, it reflected the essence of how I want to show up and what I want to offer clients. It’s that feeling you get when you’re walking through trees and the sunlight filters through in fragments. There’s something peaceful, reflective, and hopeful about it.

For me, komorebi represents creating space for reflection and offering those glimmers of hope and clarity. I think a lot of people struggle quietly and often feel alone in that struggle. What I want my work to do is help people recognise that there is still light ahead and that there is a path forward, even if they can’t fully see it yet.

That’s a lovely way to look at it. It also feels connected to a lot of Japanese philosophical ideas generally. Concepts like ikigai are popular in the coaching world, but komorebi feels like something that deserves more attention as well.

Why do you think learning often fails to translate into behaviour change?

I think a huge part of it comes back to the pace people are operating at. There’s simply too much doing and not enough space for reflection or integration.

People are juggling endless deliverables, meetings, and pressures. Even when they’re fortunate enough to attend meaningful training or development programmes, it’s squeezed into already overloaded schedules. Sometimes training becomes very tick-box in nature, and if that’s the mindset behind it, it’s never going to create genuine change.

Even when the learning itself is genuinely valuable, people return to overflowing inboxes, missed meetings, and operational pressures. With the best intentions in the world, the reflection and implementation part gets pushed aside.

I think most people genuinely want to apply what they’ve learned, but organisations often fail to create the conditions that allow that to happen. There’s very little protected time for people to process and integrate new behaviours.

At the same time, companies are under enormous pressure themselves. Economic uncertainty, political instability, restructuring, downsizing, and constant transformation all create environments where people are simply trying to survive the day-to-day workload. That creates change fatigue.

One of the things I’ve observed repeatedly in leadership programmes is that people receive a huge amount of information, frameworks, personality profiling, coaching insights, and self-awareness tools, but they rarely get enough time to properly integrate any of it.

You might get a debrief session on an assessment, but then everyone is expected to continue the work alone afterwards. In practice, those conversations often disappear because other priorities take over.

That’s why my women’s leadership immersion programme is focused almost entirely on self-leadership and integration. Participants complete Hogan assessments beforehand and receive one-to-one coaching debriefs so they already have self-awareness before they arrive. Then the immersion creates space for deeper processing through walking, MBIT coaching, guided journaling, meditation, sound therapy, and nervous system regulation practices.

The goal is not simply intellectual understanding. It’s helping people truly integrate what they’ve learned and consciously decide how they want to lead moving forward.

For me, that’s the missing piece in a lot of traditional learning programmes. We focus heavily on information transfer, but not enough on reflection, embodiment, and behavioural integration.

That’s an interesting pattern because it’s something I hear from a lot of people when I ask that question.

Considering your HR background as well, one thing I hear often is that L&D sometimes gets bundled into HR. There can be tension around proving L&D’s strategic value or a lack of communication between HR and learning teams. 

From your experience, what did those relationships look like, and what do you think are the best practices for HR and L&D working together to genuinely create culture change?

It varies enormously depending on the company, the operating model, and the relationships between the people involved. In some companies, L&D sits fully within HR. In others, it’s more integrated into operational teams or functions. Whatever the structure is, though, success depends heavily on strong partnership and communication.

Centralised L&D teams can be valuable for delivering consistent organisational-wide programmes, but the downside is that they can sometimes become too focused on standardised solutions. What businesses often need is something much more tailored to their specific challenges and context.

As an HR business partner, part of your role is bridging that gap between the centralised learning function and the operational realities of the business. But that only works well if there’s genuine collaboration and flexibility.

Sometimes standardised programmes aren’t particularly relevant for certain teams or functions because the realities on the ground are very different. A good business partner will try to tailor and contextualise things where possible, but that becomes difficult if the learning function itself isn’t closely connected to the business.

For me, the key is strong relationships, open communication, and involving L&D in the broader journey of the business rather than treating them as a separate function. They need visibility of operational challenges, transformation programmes, culture shifts, and team dynamics if they’re going to design meaningful learning solutions.

Organisations are so complex now, and many are navigating multiple change initiatives simultaneously. Without close collaboration and shared understanding, it becomes very difficult for learning programmes to genuinely support what people are experiencing day-to-day.

What are your thoughts on building communities and creating spaces where people can genuinely support each other and solve problems together?

It comes down to intentional communication and relationships.Sometimes when collaboration breaks down internally, it’s not because people have poor intentions or difficult relationships. More often than not, people are overwhelmed and focused on getting through their deliverables.

When businesses are moving quickly, people don’t always stop to think about who else needs to be brought into the conversation or who might benefit from understanding a particular change programme or initiative.

Strong communities and collaborative cultures happen when people intentionally share information, involve others early, and bring relevant stakeholders along on the journey. Whether that’s HR, L&D, operational teams, or external partners, people need context and visibility in order to contribute meaningfully.

Without that communication, teams become isolated from one another, and then it becomes much harder to solve problems collaboratively or design solutions that genuinely support what’s happening on the ground.

I’m also interested in how workplace wellness programmes can be applied in a way that really helps people. Inevitably the conversation often comes back to ROI and proving value to decision-makers. 

From your perspective, how can the ROI of wellbeing initiatives actually be communicated effectively?

There’s still a long way to go in terms of education around wellbeing and its value. Unfortunately, wellbeing can sometimes be treated similarly to L&D in that it becomes one of the first things removed from budgets when businesses face financial pressure. But I believe there are significant long-term business benefits to supporting people more holistically.

When people are regulated, supported, and working sustainably, they make better decisions, solve problems more effectively, collaborate better, and become more innovative and creative. Those qualities are absolutely critical in today’s world of constant change and technological disruption.

I also think wellbeing work reduces the long-term risks associated with burnout, disengagement, and attrition. So while some organisations still see wellbeing as a ‘nice to have,’ I think the reality is that healthier, more supported employees ultimately contribute to stronger performance and sustainability. From a KPI perspective, you should ideally see positive impact across areas like engagement, retention, wellbeing metrics, innovation, and talent attraction over time.

That’s where the qualitative side becomes interesting for me. The stories and emotional experiences behind the data. 

How do you think companies can draw out meaningful feedback and stories that demonstrate impact?

I’m still relatively early in my journey of integrating all these modalities together in organisational settings, so I don’t yet have extensive case studies in that area.

I’ve delivered corporate wellbeing sessions and events, and I absolutely think there’s value in organisations simply creating intentional space for employees. But for me, that’s only the first step. The bigger opportunity lies in integrating wellbeing into how companies develop people, lead people, and unlock human potential more sustainably.

That’s really where my work is evolving now in helping businesses move beyond standalone wellbeing events toward more integrated approaches that connect wellbeing, leadership, behavioural change, and performance.

How do you continue evolving as a coach and trainer yourself? Beyond the certifications you mentioned, what does your ongoing development look like?

I’m committed to continuous learning, both formally and informally. Alongside the modalities and certifications I have and use, I’m a member of the European Mentoring and Coaching Council and I regularly engage in networking, CPD sessions, and ongoing learning through that community.

I’m also connected with the British School of Coaching, which provides additional networking and development opportunities. Beyond that, I do a huge amount of reading and stay curious about different approaches, techniques, and perspectives.

A big part of my growth also comes through community and conversation. I learn enormously from the people around me, from shared experiences, and from ongoing reflection. That exchange of ideas and perspectives is what really makes the difference.