Bristol City Council takes on the big three!
During an otherwise typical British summer of
2010, something extraordinary was happening at Bristol City
Council, a commitment to make a change: to support staff to
improve their fitness and health. Focusing on three
bastions of good health; eating well, physical activity and
mental wellbeing, the halls and notice boards were
coloured with activities and challenges for employees to try.
Full steam ahead!
To start programming, the newly appointed
Health at Work Co-ordinator dove straight in with
exciting and supportive activities for staff to tap into. The
Be Active! Challenge was launched to
build physical activity into daily routine.
Messages included helpful reminders to try the stairs instead of
the lift, active travel and lunchtime walks. For those wanting
more of a challenge during their lunch hours and after work,
an array of fun, team-building and fitness-boosting taster
sessions was held.
For people looking for guidance around their
diet, Healthy Eating MOTs were held for staff to
ask questions and get tips from
nutritionists. This included a look at various types of
food from a health point of view as well as lifestyle (vegetarians,
ethnic, allergies).
Looking to increase the availability of
counselling for employees, the internal
Occupational Health and Counselling team held drop in
sessions for staff for the first time. While the
process usually requires a referral from a line manager, opening up
to ability to talk to a counsellor was very popular and helped to
highlight the need to open up the service for
these types of sessions to be held more frequently.
Spreading the word
Outside of education, Bristol City Council
employs a whopping 6,800 members of staff across 33 buildings:
that’s no mean feat when you’re planning a health at work
programme. Online communication is a pivotal force
in driving forward initial interest in engaging
staff. Regular emails and internal press releases and
notices are quickly and effective to promote activities
and encourage sign ups.
Calling all Health Champions
The original pilots resulted in 15
enthusiastic champions coming from various service teams
to sign up to help spread the word and expand the reach of group
activities to more workplaces. With these in place, there’s no
doubt, says the council’s Health at Work Co-ordinator, Tracey
Kenyon, that the programme wouldn't be as successful without the
champions:
“Our 15 champions
play a crucial role as word of mouth is one of the most useful
communication tools.
Improvement based on feedback
Within less than a year staff at Bristol City
Council had successfully completed three comprehensive health at
work pilot projects in different council buildings. Electronic
resources were set up for employees on their intranet and formed a
task group to look at ways to build the successful programming into
everyday working practice, supported by HR policies. All work aimed
to make health at work a refreshing part of everyday
working life for council staff. Through feedback from
employees, this type of programming was not only beneficial to
workers’ health, but also improved their performance and by
extension the service provided to the public.
Inspired?
If you want to find out more about how you can
start your own Health at Work club in your
organisation, join our health at work
programme now. If you've got a case study to share,
please drop us a line: we’d love to
hear from you.