Staying Healthy at Work programme (SHAW)

NHS East of England and Business in the community (BITC) have created a programme which aims to help employees stay healthy at work throughout the East of England.

Despite working longer hours than the European average, the UK is significantly behind in terms of productivity.

The Staying Healthy at Work programme (SHAW) has been designed to enhance productivity, reduce sickness & absence rates, improve employee engagement and increase customer satisfaction.

SHAW also aims to connect businesses facing the same problems via the Employer Network so they can successfully share ideas and resources.

Absences due to sickness cost the UK economy an estimated £16.8 billion and employees who cut out their lunch break lose approximately £50m a day for British business as productivity has shown to take a nose dive at around 3pm.

Debbi Christophers, Head of Development at BITC said: “Research shows that a structured workplace health and wellbeing programme can reduce sickness absence by an average 30-40 per cent and that engaged employees generate 43 per cent more revenue than disengaged ones.”

Anglican Water was one of the first businesses to try out the programme which involved over 1, 600 of the company’s employees attending workshops covering nutrition, stress management and health and safety behavioural management.

Rachel Dyson, Community Relations Manager at Anglican Water said: “The most precious resource a business has is its people. The health and wellbeing of our employees is of paramount importance to us and it benefits everyone involved; it is good for staff, the business, customers and the wider community.”

Source:

Staying Healthy at Work