A Health Advocate is someone who is passionate about health and wellbeing, wants to help raise awareness of health topics, and contribute to developing a positive wellbeing culture in the workplace - and even beyond. This can be anyone in the organisation, regardless of role or experience. The Health Advocate role is voluntary, and can be a great addition to a CV. It is a good opportunity to develop and practice skills such as communication, persuasion and motivating others.
The award is a declaration of our commitment to building a healthy and happy workplace culture for every employee. Designing a positive and engaging health and wellbeing offer where health inequalities are reduced is so important to us and we know we will achieve this with the support of BHAWA.
The award process provides structure for Better Health at Work. It provides support, guidance and networking opportunities to learn and improve. The opportunity to collaborate and hear about others practice across the region is always inspiring, we always come away buzzing with ideas.
We wanted to engage with our employees and provide a platform for everyone to improve their health and wellbeing at work but also support their families at home.
It has provided a focus for our Health & Wellbeing activities in the workplace and the support / information we receive from our workplace health leads has been invaluable in helping shape different campaigns rolled out across the business.
We wanted to improve employee engagement in health and wellbeing as it’s the right thing to do as a business and may also contribute to improvement in morale, a better people culture, and reduction in sickness absence levels in the long term.
As a business running this award, it shows we are committed to employee health and wellbeing and it improves employee engagement.
The award is beneficial to the organisation as it prompts us to think outside the box, extend our health and wellbeing support into new and important areas that we might not necessarily touch upon usually; and it also holds us to account for conducting high quality, meaningful campaigns.
We joined the Award to ensure that our health and wellbeing work goes above and beyond the requirements outlined by the NHS health and wellbeing framework, helping to ensure that we support our colleagues across a variety of areas and that we can demonstrate excellence in doing so.
The BHAW network provides an excellent forum to engage with other local businesses and organisations sharing best practices, knowledge and resources to improve colleague wellbeing.
Access to knowledgeable workplace support advisors and supportive community of members is hugely beneficial, assessment framework helps us measure our progress, and enjoy learning from other businesses and services as we support each other.
Firstly, and most importantly, we recognise the benefits of supporting the wellbeing of our staff and secondly, as a charity it’s great to get some recognition for what we do.
The process is strong as it leads the organisation through a series of logical steps to the award. Staff have really engaged in the process and it’s a great motivator for staff.
