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.
We chose to participate in the award programme as it is providing us with a structured and planned schedule of events and initiatives that supports our overarching health and wellbeing strategy and objectives. It is a key strand to use providing a holistic approach to our employees’ health and wellbeing.
The award programme has provided us with key benefits including pointers in data gathering, event planning and networking opportunities. The monthly health advocate meetings are invaluable in providing information on what local support is available to enable us to build up our calendar of events and provide relevant and engaging content to our employees on a variety of health topics.
We are excited to be part of this programme and look forward to progressing through the differing levels to provide real benefit to our workforce. This will ensure we continue to put health at the heart of Hitachi.
At the plant, we really wanted to support our Employees Health and Wellbeing as we transitioned back to normal business, following the Global Pandemic. This award provided us with the structure we needed to develop and launch the Health and Wellbeing plant wide strategy.
Not only does the award provide us with a criteria and structure to follow, it also allows us to focus on topics which we may not have considered previously. In addition, it provides us a network with other local businesses to allow us to benchmark and share best practices.
As a top tier COMAH site our organisation prioritises the health and safety of our people. By equally investing in Health and Wellbeing we can further safeguard our workforce. BHAWA was the obvious choice for us to build on and strengthen our offering in line with our company values.
The framework has provided our business with the tools to understand the wellbeing needs of our rapidly expanding workforce. Through the support of our local coordinator, and collaborating with others, we have been able to develop a more robust health and wellbeing agenda and embed this into our culture.
We wanted to provide staff with the tools and awareness to improve their health and wellbeing as well as improving communication and signposting our staff so they can make informed decisions on any support they need.
The award has assisted in improving communication and developing relationships with staff on all levels. The step challenge we held proved to be an excellent engagement tool and we intend to roll this out again this year.
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.
We wanted to give an equal focus on the health of our staff as well as the safety and we have seen a massive improvement in staff’s wellbeing because of our work with the award.
It has helped us formalise our Health & Wellbeing Strategy and we now have a clear plan, with clear key campaigns identified by our staff to focus on. The information and guidance available online and the support available and networking opportunities is fantastic.
