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Wellbeing
Wellbeing
The facts
- 'Wellbeing' definitions generally relate to people's experience
of their quality of life and the Chartered Institute of Personnel
and Development's is:
"Creating an environment to promote a state
of contentment which allows an employee to flourish and achieve
their full potential for the benefit of themselves and their
organisation".
- This wellbeing definition is linked to employee engagement and
creating organisations that employees will want to work for,
because they feel safe, valued, and part of a supportive work
community.
- And it makes business sense; we know from a
review that positive perceptions about work are linked with
higher productivity, profitability and staff retention. A 2008
report
on wellbeing programmes showed they can give business benefits
through cost savings or additional revenue generation.
- We know that 'good
work' is good for health and wellbeing. Among other things,
this means work that's safe, supportive and accommodates people's
needs.
- However, in 2010-11, an
estimated 26.4 million working days were lost overall to
work-related injury (4.4 million) and ill health (22.1 million).
Work-related stress, anxiety and depression led to 10.8 million of
these and musculoskeletal disorders caused or made worse by work,
led to 7.6 million of them.
-
Investors in People have introduced a health and wellbeing
award framework to help organisations manage these issues and
increase their productivity and performance.
Our position
- IOSH believes health protection and promotion are key.
Wellbeing programmes should be based on worker consultation and
support wider employer strategies such as those for employee health
and safety and HR issues.
- As large parts of employees' lives are spent at work, employers
can and should play an important role in helping them achieve
better quality working lives and the occupational safety and health
community can help support improved wellbeing at work.
- We advocate a holistic, proactive approach to managing health
and rehabilitation issues at work, with everyone working together,
workers, managers, general practitioners, human
resource and health and safety professionals, to:
- tackle the causes of workplace injury and ill health
- address the impact of health on employees' capacity to work,
providing support for those with disabilities and health conditions
and rehabilitation
- promote healthier lifestyles and wellbeing to help improve the
general health of the workforce
- We're currently piloting a course called 'Proactive
intervention in occupational health support', in co-operation with
the Department for Work and Pensions, to enable health and safety
professionals to play an increased role in workplace health issues
and facilitating and supporting safe and sustainable return to
work.
- Promoting wellbeing can offer health and safety professionals a
fresh approach to getting health and safety on the agenda – seen to
help increase business performance by engaging and motivating
employees, improve recruitment and retention and address sickness
absence and associated costs.
- Wellbeing programmes can also be good opportunities for health
and safety professionals to work more closely with other
professionals and to develop their own competence.
- In the IOSH campaign 'Back to
health, back to work' and our manifesto
'Creating a
healthier UK plc', we set out the challenge of
getting better health through better work, advocating improved
management to prevent illness / injury and more support to help
workers with health problems, stay at, or return to work.
Relevant consultation responses