06 Feb What do you want to achieve from a health and wellbeing policy?
There is a lot of talk about health and wellbeing in the workplace – at last!
It is now high on the business agenda and employers are recognising it should be an integral part of their business
What issues are you trying to address? Pinpointing the areas that need improvement will help you decide what to put in place.
Stress-related absence
This could be to do with workload, are employees struggling with this but rather than speaking out, they soldier on not saying anything for fear of being seen to be weak or not able to cope.
Stress-related absence could also be to do with issues outside of work, but which affect our mental state and so also affect our ability to cope with our work.
What could you put in place or improve on to ensure employees would come forward without fear of reprisals to discuss problems before they escalate out of control or result in being signed off on long term sick leave?
Are the sickness absence statistics showing other reasons such as physical problems? Back pain is often cited as a problem, together with musculo-skeletal issues or repetitive strain injury. Why is this? In addition to any mandatory Health and Safety regulations to abide by, what else do you have in place to assess the reasons why these issues arose in the first place. What support is there for people returning to work after they have been on sick leave to ensure a safe environment for them to get back to their normal working duties.
Staff turnover
Every business will experience staff turnover it is a natural process which happens over time but if you are experiencing a higher than usual turnover of staff this is going to affect your business financially and could affect your reputation. Do you have procedures in place to discover the reasons as to why this is happening? Is it because the employee does not feel valued, are they overworked and don’t feel they can say anything, is it a lack of opportunity for progression? All these things affect a person’s wellbeing and you could lose a good employee if matters are not addressed.
Disengagement
Do you feel that some employees are there in body but not particularly engaged in their work? This can lead to just doing the minimum that they need to do and feeling undervalued and not appreciated. Could this be a lack of communication as to what their role is in the business and not being engaged with processes? This can lead to stress related problems and possibly making the decision to leave.
There is no one size fits all when it comes to health and wellbeing for business. Knowing what you want to achieve and the specific issues you need to address will assist you in putting into place relevant policies and agree a budget which means you can keep a track of the impact your health and wellbeing strategy is having on your business.
If you would like any more information or advice, please feel free to contact Kathy Scott on 07989 367 669 or email info@handsonatwork.co.uk