Fourteen employers have been accredited under the London Healthy Workplace Charter, which is intended to set standards for improving employee health and well-being in the capital.
The initiative grew out of the Workplace Well-being Charter that was developed by NHS Primary Care Trust in Liverpool and endorsed by the cross-government Health, Work and Well-being board.
The London Charter was set up by the Greater London Authority, however, and was piloted from January to October this year, with participants including Guys and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, Middlesex University, Greenwich Council, Wolters Kluwer UK and Deloitte.
The deputy Mayor for London, Victoria Borwick, said at the awards ceremony today at London City Hall: “Improving the way we think about health, as employers and as staff, has obvious personal benefits, but it also can have a positive impact on organisations, including the financial bottom line.”
If people were fitter and healthier, they were less likely to take time off work and the evidence suggested that staff turnover was also reduced, she added.
An average London company with 250 staff loses on average £250,000 per year due to sickness absence, while workers who are physically active take 27% fewer sick days than those who aren’t. Some 17.3 million working days are also lost to alcohol abuse in England alone.
Examples of measures that the accredited employers introduced, however, were encouraging staff to take the stairs rather than the lift at work, offering subsidised gym membership and/or fresh fruit as well as providing workplace massages.
The awards were presented by Professor Dame Carol Black, expert adviser on health and work to the Department of Health, and Dr Marianne Dyer, who led the occupational health project at the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Park and Village.
