Wellbeing – creating an environment that allows people to achieve their full potential for the benefit of themselves and the organisation
Health and wellbeing in the workplace is rising up the business agenda. More employers recognise the beneficial contribution that can be made by introducing health and wellbeing policies and initiatives. We can help your organisation to create and support an environment where employees can be healthier, by: helping to identify the stress risk factors that they experience; providing training in stress awareness for managers to identify the signs of stress; providing resilience training to enable people to develop more resilience in dealing with high pressure at work; and providing information and access to schemes to improve well-being. We support organisations at two levels:
- Prevention through developing health and wellbeing policies and strategies, identifying the risks, and changing the environment to reduce the risks
- Protection through training to identify stress and develop resilience, signposting to information, and schemes to improve wellbeing
Organisational Risk Assessment
Work-related stress caused workers in Great Britain to lose 10.8 million working days in 2010/11, that’s on average 27 days off work per person. Work-related stress is defined by the Health and Safety Executive as a harmful reaction people have to undue pressures and demands placed on them at work. Stress has consistently been one of the most commonly reported types of work-related illness in the national Labour Force Survey (LFS). The HSE have developed a set of Management Standards which represent a set of conditions that, if present, reflect a high level of health well-being and organisational performance. These standards define the characteristics or culture of an organisation where the risks from work related stress are being effectively managed and controlled. We can help you use the management standards approach to understand and tackle the root causes of stress within your organisation.
Resilience Training and Coaching
Resilience is the ability to maintain performance and wellbeing whilst under pressure and recover quickly from difficult conditions. Resilience is a key leadership skill. Resilient leaders tend to analyse problems rather than become worried by them. They create an environment in which solutions to problems emerge rather than focusing on the need to have ‘all of the answers’; they make active choices as to where to divert their energies rather than allowing themselves to be diverted. They also look after their own wellbeing in order to support that of others. Research in resilience has identified that resilience is a combination of personal characteristics, attitudes, skills, and behaviours – all of which can be learned. We can provide individuals with the tools to identify their own levels of resilience and support them in developing their resilience through the identification of their signature strengths, as well as their sense of purpose. We help to develop resilient thinking and build awareness of effective coping strategies.
Stress Awareness Training
Line managers play a vital role in the identification and management of stress within the organisation. They are likely to see the problems causing the stress first hand, and will be in the best position to notice changes in employee behaviour that may indicate a stress-related problem. They will also often be the first point of contact when an individual feels stressed. It is essential that line managers are equipped with the correct skills and behaviours to be able to manage these situations. We can support you in training management to spot the signs of stress, manage the causes of stress, and guide individuals to get the support they need to tackle stress. We also use the HSE line management competency indicator to enable managers to gain more awareness of the behaviours identified as effective for preventing and reducing stress at work.
Health and Wellbeing Initiatives
Effective Health and Well-being Initiatives serve many purposes including: ensuring the organisation develops a workplace culture that promotes and supports the health and well-being of all employees; improving health and satisfaction of employees; reducing absences through ill-health; providing employees with relevant and appropriate information to help them to learn how to improve their own health; developing interventions to empower staff to improve health and wellbeing; and developing a reputation as a positive, supportive team to work within. We support organisations in creating an environment to promote health and wellbeing. We can do this on several levels, by:
- Supporting the development of a health and wellbeing strategy and action plan
- Conducting an analysis of the health and wellbeing options already offered
- Developing a communication strategy to encourage the implementation of the health and wellbeing action plan
- Evaluating the impact of the health and wellbeing initiative