Supporting Workplace Wellbeing
Advertising Feature
Why should business owners invest their time and the time of their staff in a workplace health programme? Latest figures from the Mental Health Foundation report that 875,000 workers in the UK suffer from work-related stress, depression and anxiety. Sickness costs UK employees £29 billion a year. Workplace wellbeing programmes can have a significant impact on the health and happiness of employees. National evaluations of healthy workplace programmes show that for every £1 spent on healthy workplace initiatives, businesses benefit from between £2 and £32 in reduced sickness, turnover and improved productivity. The Medway Workplace Wellbeing Award supports and recognises businesses of all sizes that strive to be healthy places to work. It is completely free to join. Businesses benefit from training, policy writing, staff activities and work towards a tiered award scheme by completing a number of pledges. Since 2018, over 200 businesses have taken part in the awards programme.
What we have seen ❛❛ as time has gone on is that staff absences are down, staff turnover is down, all things which massively
contribute to the growth of our business.
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Bal Sandher is Managing Director of Nutra Direct, a manufacturer of health supplements in Medway and a Platinum Workplace Wellbeing Award winner. Nutra Direct was recently ranked 4th in a list of 2024’s 50 fastest growing companies, compiled by Kent Invicta Chamber of Commerce. Established in 2015, Nutra Direct employs 150 staff. They joined the Healthy Workplace Programme in 2022, wanting to support staff’s mental health at a time of rapid growth for the business. In fact, the benefits to the company have been for more wide reaching, as Bal comments, ‘What we have seen as time has gone on is that staff absences are down, staff turnover is down, all things which massively contribute to the growth of our business.
Joining the Medway Workplace Wellbeing Award Programme has not meant taking on a lot of new work and has fitted in with the company’s business objectives. For us as a business we’ve not seen a burden from taking on this additional work as part of the healthy workplace programme. It’s all work that we either needed to do or wanted to do and again maybe we didn’t have the right support to actually enact it.’ ‘Previously we were trying to make changes to suit everyone, which is very difficult. Now we’re able to cater changes to staff requirements individually.’ Nutra Direct have been able to use the resources and support provided by the Medway Workplace Wellbeing Award Programme to create an annual staff survey, which they use to monitor staff satisfaction. They also hold drop-in surgeries with managers, host an online feedback form and provide an anonymous suggestion box. Through the award programme staff members have been able to access free mental health awareness and resilience training. These initiatives have been received positively, with staff saying they like the approachable and social culture of the business. In addition to mental health, the Medway Workplace Wellbeing Award Programme offers guidance to employers across a number of areas of staff wellbeing. These include managing absence and staff turnover, healthy eating and healthy weight, stopping smoking, physical activity and active travel, musculoskeletal health, alcohol and substance misuse and the environment and sustainability.
The Healthy Workplaces Programme is open to all businesses in Medway. If you’d like to find out more visit www.medway.gov.uk/workplacehealth, email workplacehealth@medway.gov.uk or call 01634 334355 Thinking Business
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