Wellbeing exercises working on Team Building and Communication, bringing together work colleagues through exercise, relaxation and learning.

Bringing helpful mind/body activities and therapeutic experiences into work can dramatically improve people’s mood and feelings about themselves, each other, and also about their work and the perceived quality of the employer.

Counselling is a type of talking therapy or psychological therapy. It involves talking to a counsellor about situations they are experiencing. Counsellors are trained to listen and can help support employees to deal with any negative thoughts and feelings.

Although there is no legal requirement as an employer to provide counselling support for employees, it is often seen as a positive way of providing support to staff. Some potential benefits to an organisation of providing support services for staff include:

• A significant positive impact on sickness absence either by preventing absence or reducing the length of time of absence (particularly as NHS access to therapy can be subject to a lengthy waiting time).
•  A reduction in the impact of lost productivity – employees who are affected by personal problems can become less productive due to lack of concentration, increased accidents and higher absence levels.
• An improvement in work effectiveness as employees who are offered additional support may feel more valued and therefore have better job satisfaction, and may benefit from discussing issues with an independent individual.
• Immediate support can assist in potentially keeping the individual at work, particularly if there are work-related issues.
•  A reduction in the risk of litigation. The provision of counselling for employees is one of a number of measures that demonstrate you are looking after the welfare and making effective provision for support for your staff.

https://support.fitforwork.org/app/answers/detail/a_id/379/type/Employer

Access a gov.uk tool that helps employers to work out the costs of poor employee health to their organisation and create a business case for taking action. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/workplace-wellbeing-tool

Wellbeing in the workplace is important because:

• on average, adults spend one third of their life at work, which means our working environment can play a big part in our health and wellbeing
• good working conditions and a supportive work environment have a positive impact on health
• healthier workforces are more productive
• taking employees’ health and wellbeing seriously reflects positively on the organisation
•  preventing illness, managing it in a positive way, and helping employees to stay in work makes good business sense

Top tips for managers – how to promote health – from bristol.gov .uk Download file

This British Heart Foundation guide is designed to support anyone who wants to improve the health and wellbeing in their workplace. Use it to help you  make the case to senior management  about why health and wellbeing is important and that it’s a worthwhile investment for your organisation.

Health at Work – Guide to writing a business case