There's a new companion tool available from Investors in People which helps you monitor and improve your approach to keeping your people healthy and well.
Introducing the Health & Wellbeing at Work
New focus on Health and Wellbeing at Work has been developed with the guidance of leading employers, health experts and the Department of Health. It gives you a flexible, holistic means to help you improve your approach to people management and development in terms of health and wellbeing.
Starting from what you are doing already, it challenges you to consider your approach in line with the Plan-Do-Review cycle, with an explicit focus on support for health and wellbeing. So in many ways, it's just the next step for a forward-looking employer looking to get more out of Investors in People.
The new focus is currently an optional extra for a limited number of clients to add onto their Investors in People assessment. Longer term, we may want to include Health and Wellbeing focus into our core product and we have been identifying which parts of the new focus will benefit all organisations.
What does it cover?
There's more to creating a healthy workforce than setting up a gym or swapping biscuits for bananas.
We recognise that some of the healthiest organisations don't have the resources to support expensive schemes. They succeed by concentrating on the fundamentals: good communication, flexible working practices, effective and fair line management, and the support people need to meet the challenges they face at work.
Investors in People health and wellbeing focus build upon our current focus to expand key areas such as:
Planning for Health and Wellbeing
Engage with the workforce to identify health and wellbeing needs, plan appropriate responses to needs, ensure the organisaiton vision and strategy do not overlook health and wellbeing
Supportive Management
Refining the capabilities of managers, their ability to manage team members effectively, address issues of attendance and rehabilitation, identify potential causes of stress, and signpost individuals to sources of help and support
Supportive Culture
Going beyond legal requirements to manage and address risks to health, avoid excessive pressure or stress. Ensuring people's objectives are clear and challenging, and they have the support and communication they need to perform effectively
Work-life balance
Reviewing working patterns to meet the needs of the organisation and the diverse individuals within it
Evaluating Health and Wellbeing
Ensure that all health and wellbeing related activity can be evaluated, establish what positive impact interventions are having on the workplace and performance, identify return on investment, continuously improve from learning
How does it work in practice?
Your Specialist assessor will collect evidence of the organisation's support for health and wellbeing alongside your Investors in People assessment. In some areas, they will look in more detail at how the organisation's approach to people management and development has been planned, delivered and evaluated in relation to health and wellbeing. Your assessment report will then also include specific feedback about health and wellbeing, including ideas for how you might address any areas for improvement.
What to do next?
With Investors in People nearing the end of the development phase of this work, a small amount of piloting is scheduled for autumn 2008.
If your organisation is not due for an Investors in People assessment during the above period, you may still wish to download the Health and Wellbeing framework available on this page or complete the Self-Check available here.