7 Practical Strategies To Improve Employee Health & Wellbeing
At Fieldskill, health & wellbeing is at the heart of everything we do. We believe that if our staff are healthy and happy at work, our customers can also benefit from a truly great experience.
When employers promote wellbeing, it can help reduce stress and create a positive working environment for employees and organisations to thrive.
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Did you know? According to the CIPD’s Healthy and Well-being survey report, the top three causes of long-term absence from work are mental ill health, stress, and musculoskeletal injuries. “CIPD research shows a trend of reactive measures when it comes to how most organisations support people with mental health issues, although they have seen an increase in the number of employers that are proactively raising awareness of mental health across their organisation. However, just 40% train line managers to support staff with mental health and around 50% train managers to manage stress. And yet it is line managers who will often be the first port of call if an individual is experiencing distress or stress, or work overload, or wants to talk about a mental health issue.”1
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, more employers are focussing on the mental wellbeing of staff but the UK workforce is still very much in the development stage.
So, what can employers do to ensure the health and wellbeing of their staff and prevent workplace illness and injury? Unfortunately, there’s no ‘one-size-fits-all’ method to designing a wellbeing strategy as the content should cater for and be based on the characteristics and unique needs of the organisation and the workforce. However, this being said, there are seven workplace initiatives which can help to support the health & wellbeing of the workforce.
- Health Making sure that your workplace offers good health promotion for physical and mental health, as well as physical safety in the work environment.
- Good Work Ergonomically designed working areas, structured job roles, and the encouragement of a great work/life balance.
- Values Offering a value-based leadership with a clear and followed goal.
- Social Ensuring employees feel listened to and their voice is heard.
- Personal Development Making sure that the workplace offers career or skillset development, with the opportunity to collaborate.
- Good Lifestyle Choices If your workplace offers food, ensuring healthy options are available. Allowing employees accessibility to physical activities such as walking or yoga clubs.
- Financial Wellbeing Ensuring that your employees receive fair pay with consideration to benefits, as well as ensuring phased retirement is planned for older employees.
When we can encourage this healthier lifestyle, our employees feel more included, with better overall wellbeing.
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In November 2022, Fieldskill was awarded the Wellbeing at Work East Sussex Commitment Award for starting our own corporate wellbeing journey.
We each undertook a staff survey to determine our views on how the company currently supports the staff and how we could further develop. From this survey, we now provide a health plan for all employees, which helps with the cost of many different healthcare options. We also offer free fresh fruit, to help promote healthy eating (although we still have the occasional doughnut).
When interviewed by Sarah Nash (Healthy Workplace Programme Coordinator), Sacha Bowles (Finance Manager and Wellbeing Lead at Fieldskill) said; “Our team is so important to us, if we can look after their wellbeing then in turn it will help our business. Wellbeing in the workplace is not a tick box exercise but a crucial area that must be addressed, which we feel very passionately about at Fieldskill.’’
We absolutely adore that we have been presented this award as it shows our employees and our customers, current and future, that we take looking after one another seriously. If we can look after ourselves, we can, without a doubt, take care of our customers.
For the full article on the Wellbeing at Work East Sussex website, please visit: https://wellbeingatwork.eastsussex.gov.uk/accredited-employers/
To find out more about how your workplace could benefit from the Wellbeing at Work programme, please visit: https://wellbeingatwork.eastsussex.gov.uk/homepage/why-get-involved/
References:
- CIPD – ‘Health at work: prevention is better than cure’: https://www.cipd.co.uk/news-views/cipd-voice/issue-19/healthier-work
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