Adopting this approach will help you no end further down the line. Quantifying the results, effect and return on investment will empower you to keep your strategy on course, viable, and supported. Data collection makes it easy to  tweak or change things that are maybe not working and also gives you the opportunity to benchmark against other organisations.

What about costs? Everything costs but not everything pays back! A well thought out scheme will at worse break even, when you consider the potential outcomes eg lower absence rates, more productive & engaged staff, improved working environment, better team dynamics, stress reduction, these and many other outcomes all filter into the bottom line.

Compliance & regulation look to be going one way, tighter and tougher, so you may well be forced into dealing with this issue, but without doubt it is always much nicer to do things because you want to. The ‘business case’ is always important, but do not forget the social/corporate responsibility angle as well. First steps can be the hardest, if you have never tackled this issue before, don’t despair this may be an advantage, to kick off with fresh impetus without the splinters of old schemes and dormant initiatives can make delivery a lot easier. Read our top tips and if you need to talk get in touch!

We launched our wellbeing workshops with Lloyds this week to support the new Commercial Wellbeing portal, Live Life Well.  The programme, designed to provide employees with the tools to understand and actively incorporate healthy living into lifestyles, consists of 5 main areas:  WellMan : WellWoman : EatWell : SleepWell : Resilience.

Each of these elements had a strong effect on employee performance and therefore a direct impact on the business bottom line.  If employees are not sleeping or eating well, or do not have the tools to effectively handle change and pressure in our increasingly pressurised world, companies may notice (or not notice but suffer from) presenteeism.  Whilst absence rates may be dropping, don’t necessarily see this as a sign that things are great.

Presenteeism is defined by having employees who are at work, but not able to perform at their full capacity due to ill health.  In the current climate it is reported that nearly a third of workers will go into work when they are feeling unwell, because they are worried about their jobs.  This is an unsustainable situation, and the costs to Britain’s business is estimated at over £15 billion per year.

So we can do our bit to promote wellbeing and healthy staff and profits, but we really do need awareness from the Board, Directors, Managers, the CEO to be able to make realistic changes that will improve employee happiness, health and wellbeing.

The theme is wellbeing and resilience at work.  It has to be said that achieving a good work life balance can dramatically help in terms of both employee wellbeing and resilience.   Helen Whitten, trainer at Workplace Healthcare held the position of Deputy Chair of the Work Life Balance Trust. Formed in 1998, their aim, which was achieved, was to get work-life balance and flexible working on the agenda of business and government. Cherie Blair and Margaret Hodge were involved in this and flex working became policy.

Helen explains ‘Performance goes down, as does engagement, if people are feeling pushed at work and unable to balance home commitments.  The main problem people complain about is relationships and it is a major expense to business when people’s home relationships break down because they go ‘out’ of the business in their minds and cannot concentrate for a considerable period of time so there is a real incentive to the business to support people both in the workplace and to maintain quality of life.’

There have been many papers written to demonstrate the correlation between balance and performance, sickness absence, engagement, loyalty to the business and staff turnover, key areas especially in the challenging financial climate many of us face.

If you would like to read more about our Work Life Balance workshop, please click here.

If you are unprepared for promoting National Stress Awareness Day, here a 3 things you can do that don’t require a great deal of planning, and may help your team to feel a great sense of happiness!

1. Grab your co-workers and get out in the fresh air for a lunch time walk.

Studies show that walking can:

• Reduce the risk of coronary heart disease and stroke
• Lower blood pressure
• Reduce high cholesterol and improve blood lipid profile
• Reduce body fat
• Enhance mental well being
• Increase bone density, hence helping to prevent osteoporosis
• Reduce the risk of cancer of the colon
• Reduce the risk of non insulin dependant diabetes
• Help to control body weight
• Help osteoarthritis
• Help flexibility and co-ordination hence reducing the risk of falls

(source The ramblers association)

2. Encourage a smile – invite employees to try this for just a few minutes

whilst visiting a great client last month I was reminded of this bit of research.  Place a pencil in your mouth, like so which forces a smile, and hey presto, you will feel happier!  This is the work of Fritz Strack and subsequently Berstein, et al.  Apparently the facial changes involved in smiling have direct effects on certain brain activities associated with happiness.

Thanks to Kate from Beiersdorf for the top tip.

3. Encourage healthy relationships

Ask employees to have a think, tomorrow they have to bring in one thing that is important to them.  Then the next day at lunch time arrange a gathering, and employees can layout their offerings with a paragraph about why their chosen items are important, they don’t need to discuss it if they don’t wish, some may want to tell you everything and others may simply want their items to be their representation.  It will encourage a sense of fun, and of finding something out about a colleague you didn’t know, thus enabling greater communication skills.

Have fun!

Your lunch box needn’t be a chore every time you have to think about making something.  Jo from our nutrition team has made these nutritionally balanced dishes out of things readily available.  If you are on a budget, buying dried beans and following the instructions on soaking them can save money, as can always making the most of your joints of meat if you are using them, boiling the bones of your chicken makes a wonderful broth and you can freeze the stock for use at a later date.  We will write more on credit crunch meals or if you would like more info why not book a workshop for your employees?  Here are a few of our favourite, along with some inspired choices from the Workplace Healthcare team’s recent travels.

Bean salad: ½ tin mixed beans, ½ bag of salad, 2-3 chopped tomatoes, 1 grated carrot, 1 chopped pepper, ½ chopped avocado, drizzle on 1 tbs olive oil, squeeze of lemon and mix well

Apple & bean salad: : ½ tin mixed beans, ½ bag of watercress/rocket, 1 chopped apple, 1 chopped stick celery, 1 handful coriander chopped, ½ chopped avocado, drizzle on 1 tbs olive oil, squeeze of lemon and mix well.

Greek inspired dishes:

Feta salad:  Chop cucumber and tomatoes and mix in bowl with olives, feta and som e fresh thyme (optional) and lots of cold pressed olive oil.

Souvlaki: This can be eaten as a dinner and the remainder brought to work as a lunch box treat!  Chop chicken (breast or thigh) and add to skewers along with chopped peppers and onions.  Coat in olive oil and season and grill for 20 minutes or until meat is cooked through.  Eat with salad and wholemeal pitta bread.

Egg/cottage cheese/ ham/ chicken salad: as either of above but replace beans with 1-2 eggs or 1 tub of cottage cheese or 1-2 slices of cold meat or marinated tofu chunks

Leftovers from dinner: Cook enough dinner to eat the next day for lunch cold e.g. baked chicken/fish and baked vegetables (add some more salad if needed)

Quick Soup: 1 handful lentils, 1 chopped carrot, 1 chopped celery stick, 1 chopped clove garlic, 1 pinch chilli, 1 bayleaf, 1 pint vegetable stock. Boil till lentils are soft, then liquidize. Eat with rye/whole meal bread and handful of green salad.

French Inspired Potage or Quick chicken soup: Boil leftover chicken bones + 2-3 slices chopped chicken (cooked) with 1 handful brown rice in 1 litre vegetable stock, 3 sprigs thyme (or any other fresh herbs) until rice is cooked. Remove chicken bones and add juice of one lemon.   To make it interesting on different days you can add some freshly made crutons, some gently fried onions, some soy sauce and coriander.

And to Japan for the Miso soup: 1-2 tbs miso +1 piece dried seaweed + 1 litre water. Simmer for 10 mins and then remove seaweed. Add 1 packet of silken tofu chopped and 2-3 chopped spring onions. Cook for a few more mins.

Sandwich toppings/fillings:

Mash 1 avocado with juice ½ lemon+ 1 chopped garlic clove. Spread on rye/wholemeal bread/ryvita/oatcakes. Top with 1 spoon of cottage cheese and slices of orange/apple.

Mash 1 tin sardines/1 fillet smoked mackerel with 1 squeeze lemon juice and 1 tbs plain yoghurt. Spread on rye/wholemeal bread/ryvita/oatcakes. Eat with handful of rocket/watercress

Chop 1-2 hardboiled eggs and mix with 1 chopped tomato, 1 handful of cress, pinch of pepper. Spread on rye/wholemeal bread/ryvita/oatcakes. Eat with handful of rocket/watercress

Employee Motivation – Expanding our horizons, learning new skills and loving the rewards.

Those team building days Mmmm.  The cynical among us who have waded through a sea of post it notes, jumped in icy waters and stepped over hot coals in the name of building relationships and working better may sigh at the prospect, however, if you need to inject some pizzazz into your workforce, reward employees for a job well done, iron out issues in communication that may have arisen, or encourage healthy team work; then don’t overlook team days or run quickly in the other direction.  A change is as good as a rest, so they say, and a change of scenery can help increase our creative streak, which is great if you desire switched on creative employees.

Here are our 3 favourites (at the moment!)

1. Sailing. Learning to sail can be for everyone.  Whether you choose small dinghy sailing (you will get wet) or a bigger yacht, you can guarantee everyone will have issues and solutions to discuss and share, new feelings and experiences to talk about, and being on the water is great for reflection and seeing the bigger picture in life.  We love Cobnor Sailing School, they run residential courses and the setting is by far the best we’ve seen.
2. Foody things. We are really enjoyed the two Italians doing foody things on the tv this year, it gave us great things to talk about (mainly food)  in the workplace healthcare office, and we think that it has to be something of a common interest, I don’t think I have ever met anyone who just ate for the sake of eating, perhaps we aren’t quite as passionate as the Italians about food?  Prove me wrong?  However, learning some new skills can do wonders for confidence; encourage health through food and home cooking.  Keep an eye on Carluccios, they run events across the UK and if you have seen the programme, who can fail to be inspired?  Also, we love Chocolart, learn to make your own hand made chocolates, a friendly team and a very professional delivery help to make the team experience first class.
3. Giving Something back. Working for charity can be rewarding.  Arranging a team day with a local charity is free and you can feel part of a project, many local charities would be grateful for your time, perhaps they have some grounds that need taking care of, vegetable gardens that could be set up, painting and decorating needs, taking care of people, cooking or perhaps inviting local charity organisations to you for a tea morning and encouraging employees to make cakes, fellow employees to buy them, and thus fundraising for your local appointed charity.  Ask your employees what they think would make a difference, and how they would like to give something back and go for it.

In September we have Migraine Awareness week, setting up a stand with information for employees to pick up info, booking a therapist to offer Indian Head Massage, running a lunch and chat for employees who suffer or have relatives who suffer with migraine to share tips on what works for individuals and new ideas can all be used to promote wellbeing.

Other ideas that you could work with throughout the year are walk to work week, whilst not feasible for everybody, you could do a ‘walk around work’ week and utilise the pedometers that will come in ever so handy on a number of occasions!  In May we have fruity Friday, you could set up a stand with free fruit, have a member of staff with a blender blending up some tasty recipes (or have our smoothie bike on-site and pedal away to your 5 a day) promoting healthy eating.  There are lots of free resources, for example the British Heart Foundation will provide you with a wide variety of promotion information and leaflets –what’s more they are free/donation.

In September we have ‘Know your Number Week‘  you could link this in with an awareness campaign, have your OHN’s providing some health checks, or call on us to visit you and carry out our know your numbers health screens.

There is always something to add some zing to your campaign, set your budget early, plan the campaigns throughout the year.  We will happily put together a proposal based upon the health days for the year for you, saving you valuable planning and resources, just get in touch!

Wellbeing Champions.

Sometimes the difficulty in keeping up momentum comes when the pressure of running a wellbeing campaign is all on your shoulders (HR/OH Departments).

Spread the load a little.  There is some evidence to suggest that your wellbeing campaign will benefit from enlisting the help of wellbeing champions within your workplace.

Put the question out there…….

Has anybody recently lost weight/attained their weight goal, would they be happy to help others by working with your wellbeing provider to promote the weight loss campaign?  How about a fitness goal/half marathon/personal best for someone?  Would they be happy to promote the new fitness classes you were thinking about running?  We often work with a number of employees within a company when there are multiple initiatives running, this way we can encourage and promote and most importantly, listen, through your employees ears.

The room was filled with a great deal of energy, Employee Engagement Managers from both Public and Private sector organisation who all had one clear goal in mind, engaging the disengaged, promoting happy, healthy working and spreading best practice to enable interested companies to try some tried and tested techniques.

You may be familiar with the “Engaging for Success” report,  Nita Clarke – David Macleod, 2009,  if not read a  copy here. The reports objective was to try and gain a comprehensive understanding of a) what is ‘employee engagement’  b) how to engage employees c) what could be the real benefits of high employee engagement d) how could we bring this all together to make a difference.

Post the publication of the report, the Prime Minister gave his backing in March this year to the creation of a new independent Employee Engagement Task Force, Friday being the first meeting of the group.

The Task Force work is based around the 4 Enablers for Engagement identified in the Macleod Review.

1> Strong, visible, empowering leadership provides strong strategic narrative about the organisation, where it comes from and where it’s going.

2> Engaging managers who

• Focus their people an give them scope
• Coach and stretch their people
• Treat their people as individuals

3> There is employee voice throughout the organisation, for reinforcing and challenging views; between functions & externally; employees are seen as part of the solution – not the problem.

4> There is organisational integrity – the values on the wall are reflected in day to day behaviour.

Naturally it’s early days, we seemed to share similar feelings with everyone in the room, that employee engagement makes sense. Its the detail that is going to take the work. Any topic that is hard to box up or sum up in a paragraph let alone a sentence is always a topic that is a tough communique.

Working on where organisations can learn about engagement, where they can get started, how they can benefit, demonstrating the successes of engagement, engaging through economic adversity, dealing with the changing nature and approach to work, plus working on what we as individuals hope to gain and provide to the task force.

We hope to keep you updated, there are plans for an information source and the website: http://engagingforsuccess.org will hopefully flourish into a useful resource centre for engaging the disengaged and building a healthy and happy workforce.

There was an energetic theme, with the Batak Pro providing the challenge  (well done Ben in IT!) and pedal power smoothie’s fuelling the efforts.

Our focus was on fun and education and Colorcon selected a good range of training, Child Nutrition, Stress Busting Nutrition and Credit Crunch Meals; along with two workshops from our WorkSMART courses, Managing Pressure for Positive Peformance and Mind Mapping for Thinking Excellence.

It was a great day and as always, feedback and quality control is of great importance to us, I will be working hard to put this together for the Colorcon management team this week.

Thinking of running a health event in your work place?

According to The Loughborough University Sleep Research Centre:

Apart from causing ‘sleepiness’, sleep loss particularly affects the more subtle forms of human behaviour known as higher ‘executive’ function, largely controlled by the prefrontal cortex – a brain region at its most advanced in humans. It is the hardest working part of the cortex during wakefulness – which may be why it seems so vulnerable to sleep loss. Here, sleep loss effects include:

• rigid thinking,
• reduced verbal fluency
• perseveration
• impaired working memory
• inability to deal with novelty and the unexpected, and
• less inhibited social behaviour.

Interestingly, unlike ‘sleepiness’ these deficits show much less of a 24 hour circadian rhythm, but steadily worsen with sleep deprivation. Contemporary ’24/7′ society requires many people to work with sleep loss, whether this be through shift-work, long working hours or simply from late night socialising.

Maybe this is familiar to you to?  Insomnia, it seems, is a common problem.  New research suggests that 26 per cent of those who work in excess of 48 hours a week are sleeping for less than six hours a night.  Benjamin Franklin may have claimed that ‘fatigue was the best pillow’, but the longer the working day, the worse a person’s sleep becomes, in length and quality.

These are the first findings of the Understanding Society study tracking 100,000 people in 40,000 British households. It says that while exhaustion may set in after a week of nine-hour days at the office, the chances of restorative sleep become increasingly elusive. One in ten men (11 per cent) and one in seven women (14 per cent) working 48 hours a week now sleeps less than six hours a night – two hours less than the recommended amount.

Sleep deprivation has many negative health effects, including obesity, hypertension and diabetes. It has been attributed to raising the chances of a woman getting breast cancer by as much as 60 per cent, because melatonin, a hormone produced by the brain during sleep to regulate the body’s internal clock, plays a key role in preventing breast tumours by suppressing the amount of oestrogen that is released.

Lack of sleep can affect your company’s bottom line, research claims that  the sleep deficit also contributes to productivity slumps, caused by sickness absence and accidents. The current sleep shortfall is estimated to cost employers eight million sick days a year, compared with just over three million in 2008.

It seems the issue here is work life balance.  If we can encourage employees to have an enjoyable life outside of work then we will find the reduced hours they are at work will be more productive and focussed, why?  Because this will lead to healthy sleep.  Okay, this isn’t the only thing we have up our sleeve, we cover many aspects of sleep in our interactive workshop:

By the end of the workshop delegates will have a good understanding of why we sleep, what is normal, the miriad of sleep problems and some solutions, the workshop is interactive and will have you wide awake with ideas for your new sleep routine… and a dreamy bag of tricks and tips for those difficult nights – no more counting sheep!

If you would like to book our 90 minute workshop for your employees, please get in touch.