This is not about "Health and Safety" legislation
The focus of Health and Wellbeing at Work is very different to Health and Safety. Employers have for many years recognised the importance of health and safety and due to existing legislation, the vast majority of organisations adhere to strict measures. Keeping employees free from injury is a fundamental requirement but for many organisations there is less expertise afforded to keeping employees healthy.
With over forty million working days lost every year to occupational ill health, reducing absence related costs is a key priority. Whilst some organisations have trusted health and wellbeing initiatives in the hands of Health and Safety Representatives, Investors in People believe that all employees and especially managers have a duty to ensure the workforce is healthy in order to meet the organisations goals and objectives.
Developing and communicating a Health and Wellbeing Strategic Plan can enable an organisation to focus on issues that have in the past may have lead to absenteeism and dissatisfaction in workplace, thereby reducing productivity. Of course it would be impossible to completely eradicate ill health from the workplace but many organisations would greatly benefit from having healthier and happier employees, with less absenteeism and the impact this has on other resources.
How a Health and Wellbeing Strategic Plan helps you to meet your objectives
Organisation frequently attempt to define the message by developing statements that describe what the business is about and what it aims to achieve. For many organisations the mission, vision and values will typically will sit above a business strategy. However, they also form part of other strategies that where effective help us to reach our maximum potential as an organisation.
If a Health and Wellbeing Strategic Plan is going to work in any given organisation it needs to be well researched by the organisation. Therefore, it is necessary to identify which elements of health and wellbeing are important to your organisation, your employees and often customers.
Like any other strategies, a Health and Wellbeing Strategis Plan it needs to be led from the top with the senior team need to help shape, define and support the implementation of strategy. The strategy also needs to be right for your organisation, written in words that people in the organisation can relate to and part of that organisations vision.
Importantly, the strategic plan needs to have measurable outcomes. It will be valuable to carryout research in your organisation to get a baseline so that you can measure how your actions are creating change in your organisation.
Ensuring any strategic plan is well communicated is crucial to it being embraced by the wider organisation.
It is vitally important to tell people exactly what it is that you are trying to achieve; if the message is weak and ill defined it is likely that the outcome will also be the same. Therefore, your organisation will benefit from investing time and effort in developing a Health and Wellbeing Stratefic Plan that is clear, concise and focused on enhancing not just employee health but the health of the wider business.
Download the Health and Wellbeing Strategy Plan template
During the course of the Health and Wellbeing at Work project, Investors in People specialist assessors have met with hundreds of employers. Whilst many of these organisations do not yet have Health and Wellbeing Strategic Plan in place, information from those that do have helped to create a emplate that can accessed here
It is hoped that by using the Health and Wellbeing Strategic Plan template, it will help employers to recognise how to focus more on this area that in the past has proved difficult for organisations to tackle.