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05/04/11 Workplace Healthcare Ltd – since 1998

 

For the first issue, how about a bit of background?

We started in 1998, as Workplace Therapies.  Despite On-site Massage being big business in the states during the 1990’s it was still relatively small in the UK.  Remembering back, I remember meeting Alastair from Stressbusters at the Mind Body Spirit show in London and chatting about the industry, in fact I was lucky enough to do a deal, I lent them my chair for a free on-site massage! It was fab.

Since then, a good number of on-site massage companies have started up, and this has to be a good indicator that massage is now recognised by companies to not just be a ‘fluffy’ service, but a service worthy of investment.

I remember my tireless pounding of the pavements years ago, knocking on doors to sell my ‘wellbeing wares’ and convince the Occupational Health and HR departments of the benefits of providing an on-site massage service to their employees, luckily for me, my hard work paid off, and we secured a number of great contracts, funnily enough, we are still working with those clients today!

It would have been easy to stay with therapies, they really do have a strong place in reducing stress and excessive pressure on a personal level as well as a corporate level, but something in me wanted to offer more.  I understood that on-site massage had a big impact on our physiology, our emotional and mental state, but that it doesn’t teach us to do things differently (unless we are extremely awake and aware!).  So we worked on developing a range of training courses, and enlisted the help of expert trainers who could deliver the workshops.  Today our most popular workshops is Managing Pressure for Positive Performance, in a time when business is up against a wall to save money and get the most out of it’s people, we have found that equipping people with some new ways of thinking, communicating and working can have a big impact on their individual wellbeing and in turn, the company’s bottom line.  I will write with info on the wider range of course topics another time, if you are interested in learning more, let me know, or take a look at the training pages on the web site.

In addition to the on-site therapies and training, we also offer: 

  • Health Screening – we take 20 minutes screening staff for health conditions
  • Fitness Classes – yoga, pilates, tai chi, boxercise and fit mind (meditation) classes. 
  • Nutrition – workshops and one to one appointments
  • DSE Workstation Assessment – we have an online DSE package that allows employees to run through simple checks by themselves, and feedback to their managers

As many of you know, we often put a range of our services together for employee wellbeing days, and i think this may be one of my favourite parts of my job, whilst incredibly tiring, planning, putting together and experiencing the days with the members of the Workplace Healthcare team is so rewarding.

Luckily the future for wellbeing at work is looking bright, for in a tough climate, business today has realised it has to look after its most important asset – its people.