These best practice organisations include:
ING Australia - here's a clip from Richard High, Health & Wellbeing Manager
Organisations that are providing accessible, targeted health and wellbeing programs are reaping the rewards of engaged employees, higher productivity and the competitive advantage of being able to recruit and retain top employees.
How six very different workplaces set up, manage and maintain their unique health and wellbeing initiatives is the focus of a new series of videos produced by Flexibility At Work.
"The aim of the videos is to enable workplaces to develop their own innovative health and wellbeing programs that benefit both employees' wellbeing and employers' bottom lines," says Kerry Fallon Horgan, Managing Partner, Flexibility At Work, who on a number of occasions has been the Head Judge of the HR Leadership Awards - Best Health & Wellbeing Strategy.
The six best practice organisations featured in these videos include ING Australia, Bupa Australia Group, Sensis, Teachers Credit Union, St Vincents & Mercy Private Hospitals and the Australian Federal Police.
Harry Stout, ING Australia CEO explains the importance to his business of their best practice program. He says “our responsibility, and mine in particular, is to create an environment which is very effective for our employees to conduct themselves on a day to day basis. To have an environment like that, our health and wellbeing program is a key part. We believe this is important to our success”.
Sally Kincaid, INGA, Executive Director, People and Performance, talks about the key aspects of their program being the physical, psychological, nutritional and community involvement. Their Wellbeing Manager, Richard High, highlights their extensive range of initiatives, what they have found to be the most successful and the importance of tracking this success.
Andrew Ashcroft, Head of Wellness Services, Bupa Australia Group, takes a strategic, risk management approach to their unique program. He says “if we are going to be health partners with our customers, we have to be health partners with our people. It’s one of those triple bottom line things. If we’re good to our people, they’ll be good to our customers, which will be good for our bottom line”. They customise initiatives for different parts of the organisation and balance the “top down” and “bottom up” focus.
Sheryn Grant, who has the responsibility for the Sensis Health and Wellbeing Program says that the keys to their success include making it part of their culture, having senior management who absolutely “get it” and keeping the program flexible and relevant.
Susan Limbrick is responsible for the Health & Wellbeing Programs at St Vincents & Mercy Private Hospitals. With the challenges of a 24/7 work environment, Susan has found the
main message of their program needing to be “what’s in it for employees”. Their innovative initiatives include a 6 minute exercise regime, which people can do while on the job. Manual handling is a real problem in hospitals and one of the benefits of their program has been reduced manual handling lost time injuries, as well as a 9% reduction in fatigue and a 56% reduction in claim costs.
Tony Cotton, AM, is the Manager Wellbeing Services for the Australian Federal Police. As an industrial psychologist of 25 years experience, he brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to the AFP Health & Wellbeing Programs. His focus is on risk reduction, organisational culture change, leadership and management engagement.
Marco Sicurella, Human Resources Manager, Teachers’ Credit Union describes their many initiatives and the outstanding benefits of having a best practice program including a 99% staff satisfaction rating in anything health related, receiving the 2008 Hewitt Best Employer in Australia and NZ, thus being recognised as one of the top 9 companies in the country to work for, they received the HR Employer of Choice Award, the CRI Silver Rating in the workplace category and they were a finalist in the HR Leadership Awards – best Health & Wellbeing Strategy.
As a finalist judge for the Australian HR Awards in the Health and Wellbeing category, I’ve found that leadership support for wellbeing programs has meant ongoing funding as well as the role modelling needed to create healthy, best practice workplaces.
An excellent example of this leadership is Richard Bowden, Managing Director of HBA Health Insurance, who undertook the Oxfam 100km walk for four years and supported three of his leadership team members to return from parental leave on a part-time basis.
What types of wellness initiatives are workplaces offering?
Citibank’s provision of sleep apnea screening;onsite gym with fitness facilities, trainers and classes;
pregnancy wellbeing policies;the option of a flu vaccine or aromatherapy alternative;dining and leisure benefits;
employee access to a dedicated intranet portal showing them how to submit a flexible work arrangement proposal;
and a four day onsite biennial health and wellbeing event;
HBA Health Insurance has a monthly online wellness magazine; subsidised health insurance for employees and their families; and a comprehensive wellbeing awareness program;
Sensis provides site specific health and wellbeing committees organizing regular activities; a regional people commitment fund and a care safety program which has been highly effective in changing the safety culture;
Main Roads WA has an active health monitoring program; accessible exercise programs; exercise squads; and a waist watch challenge which resulted in a decrease of 161.22cm of waist girth!
The City of Brisbane's Well 4 Life Program has a dedicated Wellness Centre, which is a fully equipped gymnasium facility. Here professionally trained consultants deliver up to 26 classes a week and conduct personalised fitness assessments. The Recreational Fund enables employees to participate in self-nominated activities such as rock climbing and also Corporate Run programs such as Bridge to Brisbane fun run. Their extensive flexible work and leave options include fourteen weeks paid maternity, paternity and adoption leave as well as cultural and ceremonial leave.
The City of Playford’s building facilities providing fresh air recycling, interface between indoor and outdoor areas, large café areas for informal meetings, breast feeding facilities and ergonomically designed work stations. One outcome of the building design has been the growth of community between the inside and outside staff. Their Healthy Lifestyle Program provides skin screening and tests for nutrition, cardiovascular disease, waist to hip ratio, vision and stress to name a few.
The City of Melbourne’s Leap into Life program provides monthly forums and consultations on topics such as sleep awareness, managing grief, bone density testing, gender health, cancer awareness, financial management and healthy cooking. They also provide fresh fruit deliveries, medical rebates, day spa vouchers and classes in boxing, pilates, yoga, meditation and tai chi.
We know that ‘success breeds success’ and workplace wellbeing programs provide significant bottom-line benefits on which to build leadership support. For example:
Greenslopes Private Hospital’s Club Wellness members having a 24.8% lower rate of absenteeism and one in six staff nominating their Wellness Program as a major factor for selecting GPH as an employer;
HBA Health Insurance saw a 26% reduction in absenteeism and increases in employee satisfaction from 64% (2003) to 75% (2006).
Flight Centre saw a 26% decrease in sick days - a saving of more than $500,000.00. Their unique Health and Wellness Index Reports compare individual wellness KPIs to profitability and productivity. Results have shown that the State with the highest health and wellness indicator also has the best staff retention and highest increase on budget profit!
Creating successful work/life and wellbeing programs
Management commitment and employee engagement are key to the success of wellbeing programs. This commitment and engagement require consultation, on-going education, sophisticated facilitated dialogue and program evaluation. Our innovative tools such our Work/Life Audit, Flexible Workplace Guidelines, E-Learning Programs and 3-D simulation technology provide enabling resources for the success of your work/life and wellbeing programs.
Further details contact Flexibility At Work on Tel: (02) 9402 4741 Access the e-learning demonstrations here.
Benefits Outside the Square
The Mercer study, “Benefits Outside the Square”, found there to be a real disconnect between what employees are wanting and what employers believe they want in terms of benefits that induce them to stay with an organisation. Only 3 of the top ten benefits that an employer would like match those the employer thinks the employee wants.
What topped the list for baby boomers was for their employers to help them access financial advice and education but less than one third of employers are actually doing anything about it. David Anderson, Asia Pacific Business Leader of Mercer’s outsourcing business, said that “improving the financial literacy of employees of all ages can meaningfully improve the productivity and the longevity of a workforce”. In the current financial crisis, financial management skills take on an even more crucial role.
Our latest e-learning program, “Your Life – Your Money! Making your life work for you”, facilitates the personal responsibility needed for success with wellbeing iniatives by providing a 12 Step Life Planning Process as well as the financial literacy education to achieve the lives they want. Offering this program as a benefit to employees is a valuable component of an organisation’s work/life and wellbeing program.
This excitng 1 hour e-program was developed by All Money Matters and Flexibility At Work. It contains 10 modules which are the equivalent in content of our half-day “Life Planning” workshop and 12 Money Management coaching sessions.
Remember to turn on your speakers or plug in your headphones to listen to the program.
To view the full program contact Flexibility At Work on Tel: (02) 9402 4741
Our personal life coaching sessions can give you the breakthroughs, insights, motivation and strategies you need to reduce the symptoms of stress, make the most of your precious time and achieve the life you want.
Contact Kerry Fallon Horgan on Tel: (02) 9402 4741 or email kerry@flexibility.com.au for your first coaching session, which includes a free copy of the 55 minute MP3 audio program “Flexibility At Work: The Opportunities & Challenges”.
