Next steps for workplace health

Expert workshop

NB C3 is holding a series of workshops, following feedback from this December 2011 workshop – click here >>, or for more information, please contact us [email].

In December 2011, 16 leading UK experts in workplace health attended a C3 Collaborating for Health workshop to share experiences of what works in workplace wellness, and exchange views on innovation and the challenges to future initiatives.

• For a longer précis of the meeting (pdf), click here >>

The workshop began with a series of short ‘lightening talks’ given by five workplace health practitioners.

• Zoe Eccleston: PepsiCo has had particular success with its Health Action Teams, made up of 8–10 people from each site who are committed to workplace health, who meet monthly to come up with ideas for how best to reach the workforce, addressing issues including diet/hydration and smoking.
• John McCaul: RWE Npower is focusing particularly on mental health: managers are trained to recognise and act on early manifestations of mental health issues, and employees are supported through, e.g., counselling by OH nurses or an external confidential hotline.
• Helen Wray: At Mars Chocolate UK ‘champions’ of workplace health are particularly important, and wellness is being embedded in training for managers. The link between wellness and productivity has been accepted by the board.
• Jane Abraham: Ginsters first offered voluntary health assessments (paid for by the local authority). Then, free interventions were put in place (charges for some then introduced in subsequent years), including  initiatives beyond the workplace – e.g. working with the Highways Agency to build a cycle path to the station, and working with 20 microbusinesses in the supply chain to offer them the same opportunities.
• Val Bertram: Unilever UK offers health check and appropriate interventions, linked both to external messaging (e.g. Change4Life) and to what the brands are doing (e.g. Flora’s programme on saturated fat). Local business expertise should be leveraged, with messages clear, simple and appropriate for different groups, and with strong leadership. And it needs to be fun!

Discussion included:

a) Success depends on engaging the whole workforce:

• securing the buy-in of top-level management, training managers, and ensuring participation at all levels of the company (including using companies’ own comms teams to develop messaging).

b) Messaging

• One size does not fit all when it comes to messaging to people in different parts of the company and in different regions of the world.

c) Best use of resources

• There will be only limited budget for health and wellness, but there are significant amounts of information and help that can be accessed – e.g. NHS Choices, local/national charities, or local primary care organisations – or an external organisation can be used to design and implement a programme (although there is a lack of quality assurance).

d) Evidence and evaluation

• The evidence base demonstrates the impact of investment on long-term health and on shorter-term absenteeism, productivity and performance – and is essential for senior management buy-in, though the evidence is not as robust as it could be – better information-gathering and -sharing is needed.

e) Engaging with local communities and at home

• Peer influencers (i.e. people within the organisation who have changed their behaviour) can also engage externally, leading to powerful communities; and the whole family can be engaged (e.g. Ginsters posted all its communications around health and wellbeing to employees’ home addresses with their payslips).

f) Reaching out to other companies

• Whether and how best to share successful workplace health initiatives with other companies, particularly mentoring of SMEs (who often face serious economies of scale issues) and working with supply chains, e.g. opening up company facilities.

g) Taxable benefits

• Although the rules on taxable benefits are currently being discussed, there are real issues with this, because the cost of the tax of giving employees the chance to exercise can be as much as half the cost of the actual programme.

This event was kindly supported by PepsiCo.