Increasing business productivity can be a challenge. When you’re managing a team of people, you want them to work hard and produce their best work, but it’s not a good idea to work them too hard. After all, a tired workforce will become unproductive, and may even get ill more often.
Worcestershire County Council have recognised that increasing business productivity is something that is much easier when you have happy, healthy staff.
The council’s Worcestershire Works Well project has been running for more than five years now, and has had a positive impact on more than 75 businesses and 25,000 employees in the county. Ten per cent of the Worcestershire workforce has now benefited from the scheme.
By focusing on staff wellbeing, the programme has helped businesses to:
Increase productivity
Reduce rates of staff sickness
Improve staff loyalty, leading to:
a reduction in staff turnover
reduced recruitment costs.
With Worcestershire’s aging population, the focus has been on improving health for the 40-64 age bracket, which has the knock-on effect on ensuring people have a better chance of enjoying good health in their retirement.
Promoting good health
The programme focuses on promoting good health, smoking and tobacco control, mental health, physical activity, healthy eating, leadership, health and safety, attendance management, and alcohol and substance misuse.
The scheme is free to access, and businesses that sign up are helped to focus on embedding a healthy culture into their workplace. DHL Droitwich is one such organisation that has benefitted from Worcestershire Works Well (WWW). The company offered their staff a free health MOT and conducted a survey to assess their starting point.
A representative from WWW then supported the business to make changes and focused support on helping staff to make healthier lifestyle choices. A year on from this, the rate of short-term absence has dropped and one site alone has saved more than £37,000 by reducing sickness absence.
To find out more about Worcestershire Works Well, please talk to us about attending our next North Worcestershire Business Leaders meeting, where Angie Waldron from WWW will be talking about their successes, and Karen Fox from The Mainstay Group will talk about her involvement in the programme and the benefits she’s seen.
