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The Make A Difference Awards, in association with the London Evening Standard and The Watercooler Event, are an opportunity for us to stop, think and thank the colleagues and employers who have really made a difference over the past year to workplace culture, mental health and wellbeing. Those who are leading the way and inspiring others to follow their example.
Launched in 2021, the Awards are an integral part of Make A Difference Media & Events’ mission to bring more and more employers to the employee mental health and wellbeing conversation. They also showcase the organisations that are setting a new benchmark for workplace cultures, where every individual can thrive.
For 2023, we were looking for entries that show a sustainable and measurable commitment to proactive, preventative and inclusive support of workplace wellbeing. We also asked for entries to demonstrate cross-departmental cooperation that is embedding workplace wellbeing across the organisation as business as usual.
We received a phenomenal response to the Awards, with more than 260 nominations from an array of organisations – multi-national corporates right through to small charities and everything in between. It’s fantastic to see so many organisations who are proud of the progress that they are making with workplace culture, mental health and wellbeing. We applaud everyone’s endeavours. After much deliberation, our judging panel of experts selected their shortlist. The winners of both the Judges’ vote and the “public/open vote” were announced at the end of Day 1 of The Watercooler Event on 25th April.
The Voters’ winners of Awards 1A, 1B, 1C and 2A, 2B, 2C were determined by the number of votes received on our dedicated Open Vote page. From 16 March to 17 April, a total of 6,407 people cast their votes for the employer or employee that has made the most difference to workplace mental health and wellbeing over the past year.
The shortlisted nominees and winners of all the categories are listed on this page.
If you would like to sponsor the 2024 Make A Difference Awards, contact [email protected]
The shortlisted nominees for each category for the 2023 Make A Difference Awards:
Employer that has made the most difference to workplace mental health and wellbeing over the past year:
Category A: Companies with > 500 employees
Health and wellbeing is part of everything we do. We pledge to support colleagues and their families with tools, resources, and benefits to holistically manage physical, emotional, and financial health and wellbeing, proactively and reactively.
Over the past year we have developed our suite of Wellbeing benefits, including a company funded GP24 service and Healthcare Plan with access to add dependants, giving peace of mind.
We also have a 100-strong network of mental health first aiders, provide a 24/7 emotional support line, give access to a wellbeing app, and provide mandatory mental health training to support leaders and colleagues.
Through our Wellbeing programme we’re able to raise awareness, talk about and tackle difficult and taboo subjects such as the menopause, fertility, cancer, and mental health, while also keeping the holistic balance with a focus on physical and immune health.
We have run events, with external and internal participants to share experience, provide education, and guidelines to help colleagues navigate their health and wellbeing needs.
To support colleagues during the cost-of-living crisis, we provided a range of support including two cost of living payments, enhanced discount benefits, financial training and additional mental health and wellbeing assistance for customer-facing colleagues who experienced difficult customer conversations. Our data-driven approach enables us to use insight to evolve our risk-based wellbeing programme to better support colleagues.
Last year, via our Health programme we made around 70,000 positive interventions, received an NPS score of +80 and estimated £3.8m in savings from reduced absence through effective support provided.
We’re one of the UK’s largest contract caterers, employing 10,000 colleagues across a diverse client base including care homes, schools, workplaces, and stadiums. Colleague wellbeing and support is at the heart of our strategy and we’re proud of the extensive range of initiatives we’ve implemented, including;
• Our network of Mental Health First Aiders, who’ve undertaken an intensive two-day training course run by MHFA England and are supporting colleagues throughout the business
• Our Colleague Support Programme ‘We Care’, providing confidential and impartial support, information, and advice through a team of skilled specialists.
• Partnered with Able Futures to offer all colleagues an additional free and confidential service, providing up to 9 months of mental health support from a qualified professional • Introduced ‘Everyone Counts’; a dedicated campaign providing physical, mental and financial wellbeing resources including video guides and factsheets to increase awareness of support available to all our colleagues.
• Launched a range of family friendly policies aimed at further supporting colleague wellbeing, in areas including menopause awareness, bereavement leave in the event of baby loss, enhanced carers leave for those with caring responsibilities
• Introduced a sabbatical policy enabling colleagues to apply for extended leave
• Under our ‘Celebrate Equality’ initiative, a cross-divisional team of champions have expanded our focus across all aspects of equality, diversity, and inclusion, further enhancing the sense of wellbeing.
• Introduced our People Promise based on fundamental principles including colleague fulfilment and support during life’s ups and downs. To see this in action please view our short video at https://youtu.be/pxebC1PvmDM.
Independent Assessment Services are DWP contracted to independently assess and process PIP payments for people with disability/health conditions.
Our Health & WellBeing Team formed in 2021 to drive cultural change. Our Wellbeing Strategy communicates a clear vision that’s underpinned by measurable objectives. Our Strategy Action Plan has associated targets/goals using the framework “Do Now (3 months)”, Do Next (6 months)” Do Later (12 months)”. Results are shared monthly with SLT and communicated via different engagement platforms.
2021-2022 achievements:
• Calendar of Activity, wellbeing updates, webinars, Let’s Talk/Buzz sessions
• Teams organised/delivered; laughing yoga, meditation, charity/volunteering projects, mindfulness, ‘Cookalongs’ (healthy eating under “£5”)
• Launched dedicated protected time to enable weekly wellbeing activities
• Health and Wellbeing Hub ‘Looking After You’ for resources, signposting, story-sharing/testimonials
• 255 Managers (86%) attended 1-day Mental Health workshop.
• New MHaW Mental Health Allies network created and 49 MHaW Allies® cross-business volunteers trained as expert listeners/signposters
• Manager coaching: supporting successful return-to-work approaches
• Launched wellbeing check-in framework for all
• New Flexible Working & Leave policies plus a Buddy system for new starters
• Analysed demographics/sickness trends then set up Menopause Café with associated campaign. 200+ attendees
Impact:
• Reduction in mental-health related-absence from average 24 days to 17 days in one year
• increase in productivity output by 10,000 assessments/month
• increase – 53%-82% positive response rate to the statement “my manager shows a sincere intertest in me as a person, not just an employee”.
• increase – 52%-85% positive response rate to the statement “people are encouraged to balance their work life and their personal life”
In 2020, Medivet’s engagement survey cited colleague wellbeing as the main concern of employees throughout the company. As a provider of veterinary services, the findings were consistent with industry data about increasing numbers of vets and nurses leaving the profession; and more than 50% of businesses stating that they do not have a full complement of qualified staff. Poor work-life balance was a contributor for 60% of leavers. It was also identified that 45% of veterinary surgeons leaving the profession had been vets for less than four years and 21% of leavers had been vets for less than one year.
Medivet explored driving factors by performing a company-wide wellbeing review. A wellbeing committee was established, with role-representatives feeding into the strategy. As a result of collaborative working and fact finding, we implemented:
• A four-day working week for vets. A revolutionary step for an industry obliged to provide 24/7 support.
• A programme of dedicated internal mentorship which has improved early career retention by 30%.
• Employee assistance and occupational health services (including counselling), available on demand for all colleagues
• Integration of a financial wellbeing app – allowing colleagues to request sustainable salary advances.
• A suite of veterinary specific mental health and suicide awareness training, that forms a compulsory part of the company-wide induction programme. Colleagues can ‘signpost themselves’ and their peers to relevant support networks.
• A ‘Medivet wellbeing app’ – where colleagues can measure their ‘wellbeing score’ and identify resources to improve in specific areas; and investment into resilience training.
NatWest Group’s purpose is to champion potential, helping colleagues & their families to thrive. Taking proactive action to support positive mental health and wellbeing is a crucial part in this.
NatWest have:
o Partnered with JAAQ, a new wellbeing social media platform that allows us to speak with colleagues in an innovative way
o Collaborated with Peppy Health to launch menopause support app
o Launched digital learning with The Wellbeing Project, aimed to build colleague/team resilience in a hybrid world
o Introduced digital CBT service & increased available counselling sessions for all via EAP from 6 to 8
o Launched new ‘Financial Health Hub’ to support colleagues navigate cost of living difficulties
o Introduced psychologically safe environments for colleagues to connect via ‘drop in cafes’- eg. bereavement/ mental health/menopause
o Increased Wellbeing Champions to 1.5k, promoting wellbeing services across all areas of organisation/regions
o Introduced market leading Partner Leave policy- allowing fathers/partners up to 52 weeks leave after childbirth/adoption- reaffirming commitment to culture of flexible working & work/life balance
o As part of bereavement support launched ‘Stars of Remembrance’ campaign- digital platform allowing colleagues to record memories of lost loved ones
This is having a positive impact:
o 2022 internal wellbeing index noted favourable score of 82 when asking colleagues if stress levels felt manageable at work (increase from 79 in 2021 survey)
o Days lost to sickness absence reduced from 2021 to 2022.
o Positive colleague engagement- eg. 2k Peppy users in first 6 months
At the heart of all Ocado does is this sense of family and being on the same team, which links to the importance of employee wellbeing. Over the last 12 months Ocado has made significant progress in this space moving themselves into a sphere of being an employer of choice and one that is recognised for placing the wellbeing of its people at the core of all it does. Initiatives in the last 12 months that have been launched all centre around ensuring that the support for our people is consistent, readily available and proactive.
These things have included launching a Mental Wellbeing Champion Network which includes c. 80 champions that have been trained globally to support our people, a full wellbeing partner review which included dissolving existing relationships and launching with a new global partner, and the design and launch of our own internal mental health foundations course focused on providing all our people with access to Mental Health education. Beyond this we have also looked at partnering with organisations globally which has been done via joining the Mind Forward Alliance.
All of these activities amongst others have been linked to Ocado’s wider Health and Wellbeing Strategy which also launched in the last 12 months, focusing on three key pillars of breaking the stigma, creating conversation and empowering wellbeing. As an organisation this year has been monumental in showcasing the commitment and accountability that the organisation has taken to ensure it looks after the wellbeing of its people.
Our wellbeing study at PMI in 2021 identified a sense of control over workload was the largest driver of negative mental wellbeing, while peer support groups & mental health training were the two most requested interventions.
To address this across the business we launched Our employee-led Well-being Advisory Group; a diverse body that includes senior leaders and well-being advocates from various functions and regions. The group has have been working 1 on 1 with markets across the world to put more control back into employee hands over workload.
Through a stand for positive work habits, our flexible hybrid model, taking annual leave, and the use of technology to protect time. The launch of Wellbeing Champions received training on how to listen, have supportive conversations, and act as a catalyst for positive well-being initiatives in their locations.
This programme now has local trainers in 18 countries with 10 more countries to be trained in 2023. They have been a key part of promoting wellbeing behaviours across PMI.
To address stigma around mental health we developed self-paced, online training on our LMS platform, called “Mental Health for All. ” This training offers insight into the science of mental health, teaches how to spot the signs of common problems, and introduces proven and easy self-care practices and basic skills to offer help to others.
It is translated in 10 languages, and we will be rolling it out further in 2023, as well as incorporating it into our leadership and management development programs. Perceptions of psychological well-being is measured on a five-point scale from very bad to very good.
In October 2022, 74% percent of employees responded “good” or “very good” compared to 2021: 61% percent. This is a positive trend, which exceeded our annual target and external benchmarks.
At Poundland, we have always put a spotlight on Mental Health and Wellbeing, making it our priority to provide essential resources for colleagues. Although COVID-19 caused devastation to the nation and communities we serve, it also highlighted opportunities and areas of focus to accelerate our Wellbeing agenda. To better understand what our workforce requires to support their Mental Wellbeing, we used various listening methods to help us shape and adapt our plan.
We held roundtable “Listening Group” sessions across UK & Ireland, with a combination of colleagues from various business areas – focused on existing resources and desired support. Additionally, we comprised Wellbeing questions into our bi-annual “Your Voice” engagement survey – asking questions about support, resources and work-life balance.
During this period, we gained valuable insight, helping us further develop the colleague experience and our People Led strategy. We modified our portfolio, starting with colleague policies and handbook – use of language, adapting ways of working etc.
We introduced a new Wellbeing handbook for Managers, offering guidance on handling difficult conversations. We incorporated Wellbeing into the Welcome Induction, rebranded display materials and intranet webpages – highlighting the financial, practical and emotional support available to colleagues.
During 12 months, we saw a significant shift in engagement. From our Your Voice survey, the Wellbeing section increased by 23 points to 78%, with colleagues sharing they felt supported with their Mental Health and Wellbeing. As we continue creating safe spaces, 112 colleagues volunteered to become MH Champions on behalf of their peers.
From this development, we have been approached externally from like-minded retailers to offer support on building their Well-being Strategy.
We started our mental health and wellbeing support at River Island over 4 years ago now, we started with a simple self-care workshop and not one person joined it, We built resources and toolkits aimed at supporting Islanders to take a proactive approach to their own wellbeing and no one used them, 4 years on and our wellbeing workshops are our most popular tools, we have a team of 25 mental Health Allies who support islanders with signposting to support available and are a kind ear and non-judgemental space to feel safe.
Our mental health journey has matured, and we have introduced; Domestic Abuse workshops and a policy, suicide awareness and support for our managers as well as topics that affect our Islanders such as menopause and cancer in the workplace.
Our strategy puts wellbeing at the front and centre of all we do and we have recently introduced our care packages providing free food, hygiene products and cost of living payments for our Islanders to support their financial wellbeing through the cost of living challenges, we recognise the importance of looking after our people and our workplace engagement survey showed that the question “River Island care about my wellbeing” was the highest scoring result across the business. We would love the opportunity to share some of the things we do in more detail.
In August 2020 Sunbelt launched our ‘Lets Talk Mental Health’ initiative. We trained over 40 employees from across the business to become Mental Health First Aiders and we now have over 90 colleagues trained in all areas of our business. This group meet monthly to discuss anything that has come up over the previous month and any issues we see arising, support we have offered and how it was dealt with, what we might have dealt with differently, anything to make sure our MHFA feel comfortable with the support they offer and their role.
This group also take feedback from the business and from this we have also launched other initiatives to support Mental Health. Finance issues were highlighted as a concern so we launched a financial wellbeing programme to support education, offer loans, advances and savings schemes. We made sure our MHFA are equipped to signpost if its clear colleagues are struggling with MH due to their finances. We also launched Managers half day training and we have made this mandatory for anyone with line manager responsibility. | Other initiatives we have taken part in are #letstalk day where we encourage managers to get out for a walk, go for a coffee, cake, anything to help them open up.
We incorporated Mental Health into our Safety Week in October 2022, reminding people about our EAP, MHFA, linked MH to our wellbeing strategy and included it in our employee survey to enable us to monitor and plan for the future. We also link it to our ‘Lets Move’ programme where we encourage physical activity which we know can link to Mental Health!
For us, it isn’t just an initiative, it is weaved into everything we do as a business and the above are just a few examples!
Unilever UKI has 12 sites (offices, R&D, factories) with c.6000 employees. Reviewing demographic data, an impact driven 2022 strategy had a personalised approach to health and wellbeing.
Employee led networks, regular surveys and exit interview data have evolved our policies; sitewide menopause and fertility allies, carers networks are closely aligned to Enable (disability), Unity (gender equity), Proud (LGBTQ+), Empower (ethnicity) and Early Careers networks ensuring everyone has a voice, peer and company-based wellbeing journey support.
Unilever UKI was the first FMCG awarded menopause accreditation, recognising our work in embedding menopause in our culture, policies, communications and services.
Team development programmes ensure everyone has responsibility and accountability in building a team wellbeing charter, embedding and measuring psychological safety within company culture.
All employees have access to appropriate, integrated support, e.g., Employee Assistance Programme, Babylon virtual GP, healthcare scheme, Grocery Aid, Headspace, Sleepstation and financial wellbeing support.
Time to Talk teams (Mental Health First Aiders), established 2015, had 2000+ support conversations in 2022, reflecting positive reductions in mental health stigma.
Diversified communications in 2022 included webinar programmes and on-site wellbeing activities seeing 176,119 read Yammer messages and 4172 health and wellbeing hub views (over 2/3rds of employees).
Our 2022 Health MOT roadshow ran for 65 days showcasing wellbeing support and was designed to engage, resonate, and reduce stigma from accessing healthcare. As a result, we have seen increasing uptake for on-site health checks and access to wellbeing services.
Our support continues to evolve based on employee feedback, data and changing needs.
In 2022 we made a conscious effort to align our People & Operations strategy. Lindsay Southward moved into the People & Operations Director role, driving positive change in culture, engagement and employee wellbeing alongside our overall business strategy.
During the year of 2022 we saw an uplift of 12% in our employee engagement, to 86% overall engagement. We reinvigorated our employee benefit platform, a one stop shop for” Employee Life” Called My VILLAGE REWARDS to ensure this was user friendly, engaging and over the course of 6 months we increased our active usage by 50%.
This was achieved by adding additional benefits; including a Free Flu Jab, Holiday Purchase Scheme, Mental Health & Financial wellbeing policies and enhanced family friendly benefits. Other benefits include high street discounts, employee assist programmes and your Birthday off work.
Our wellbeing strategy is at the centre of how we gain competitive advantage and we excel in delivering a number of initiatives that have influenced and support good work life balance and working practices, with our people at the forefront.
We have trained 40 Mental Health First Aiders, offer complimentary gym membership worth over £1500 to all employees plus one for Friends and Family and offer access to a number of financial, emotional and social wellbeing support via our wellbeing hub.
As the changing expectations of our employees and customers continues into 2023, we continue to explore the opportunities of adding value to the workplace to enhance our employee engagement, job satisfaction, customer experience and business efficiency.
Category B: Companies with < 500 employees
Atom’s entire purpose was to challenge the status quo in the banking industry and stand up for what was right for customers.
This has continued to be translated into what Atom does for its people too. In response to key business metrics and feedback from employees about well-being a proposition of moving to a 4-day week (working less for the same pay) was developed.
The proposal included a reduction in working hours from 37.5 to 34 hours with no reduction in pay.
Planning, communicating, and listening was integral to making it work. This was one of the biggest wholescale people/business changes carried out at Atom and whilst it was planned, the outcome was unknown. 4-day week in Atom has not only positively impacted the lives its people, but business has also never been better.
Key metrics over 12 months include:
Attrition = decrease by 10%
Sickness = 0.6 average days lost (from 1.8 days)
Engagement = increase by 10% to 84%. This compares to an FS average engagement score of 72%
Applications = consistent 35% increase in direct job applications (500% increase shortly after our launch)
Glassdoor score = 4.2 (highest scored against competitors)
Atom app ratings = iOS (5*), Android (5*).
Trustpilot score = 4.8. Atom is the 3rd highest rated bank on Trustpilot (at the time of writing)
GingerMay is a multi-award winning PR consultancy upholding people-first values in an industry where nine in ten PR professionals struggle with mental health and 58% are stressed by overwhelming workloads*.
We’re smashing this reputation: 90% of our team feel empowered to balance work and personal life compared to the 31% of UK workers who do not**.
Our initiatives include: Mental Health First Aid – GingerMay invested in training Mental Health First Aiders (MHFAs) who recognise the early signs of stress and offer one-to-one support. They engage with staff and the management team to accommodate everyone’s workplace needs. GingerMay’s most recent team survey found 90% of staff feel comfortable seeking MHFA support, contrasting with the 47%*** of employees who fear discussing mental health at work should it harm their career.
Education – We arrange expert talks on topics including sleep and nutrition, which 100% of the team have engaged with. Additionally, we appointed a menopause ambassador to inform the team about how the menopause can seriously affect those experiencing it.
Personalised flexibility – Every team member has hybrid and part-time working options, and are fully set up to work remotely. Individuals can adjust their hours to accommodate childcare and mental health needs. We also run Summer Fridays, allowing staff to get away early and enjoy the longer evenings from July.
Our dedication to staff wellbeing has led to our impressive 10% turnover rate (versus 29% benchmark****) and our excellent employee Net Promoter Score of 62 (versus benchmark of 24 for companies with <250 staff*****).
Appendix (supporting information) *https://newsroom.cipr.co.uk/pr-practitioners-less-likely-to-take-time-off-for-mental-health-than-other-uk-workers/ **https://standout-cv.com/work-life-balance-statistics-uk ***https://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/article/1743062/half-uk-employees-uncomfortable-discussing-mental-health-at-work ****https://www.prweek.com/article/1754444/agency-business-report-2022-despite-record-revenue-growth-agencies-high-attrition-rates *****https://www.hive.hr/benchmarking/
Launched in 2021, Minds Matter, our mental health and wellbeing network, went from strength to strength over the past year. Minds Matter came about as a way to encourage our people to feel free to be their true selves and share stories in a safe and supportive environment.
The network is enthusiastically sponsored by two board members who have shown leadership by bravely sharing their own struggles. The Minds Matter network has been passionately embraced by our colleagues. Our intranet page is regularly updated with advice and resources as well as signposting our trained mental health first aiders (MHFA).
In 2022 we trained 16 new MHFAs, 60 colleagues took part in a Mental Health Aware course and 24 managers took a Psychological Safety at Work course. The feedback on these courses has been outstanding.
We also have campaigns where we sponsor advertising via the community channel. Some examples were the Big Listen from Samaritans, Missing People and young people’s mental health.
We invited colleagues to join us at The Watercooler Event to help us decide on our next focus, as it’s important it’s not just the business that decides. The key takeaways were burn out support and fertility/menopause support; we now have fertility and burnout prevention training coming soon (resilience training). We have also introduced healthcare cover to everyone and their families and have already had great feedback on mental health support received.
The impact of our initiative contributed to our workplace Belonging survey increase by 10%.
Millwood has intrinsically included engaging with people with additional needs to fulfil their employment requirements since 1999 (when our CEO Matt Joined). Millwood is an award-winning, 30 year established, Disability Confident leader and valued member of the BASE community. Millwood makes a difference – daily by embedding the concept of Employ The Character Teach The Skills to ensure they fulfil their recruitment requirement and to bring as many people from disadvantaged sectors into purposeful paid employment.
Since our CEO – Matt Wood joined in 1999 he has utilized a suite of complementary services, organisations and facilities including NHS Hubs, Apps, networking, building personally longevity relationships, finding and working with dedicated charities and engaging with key influencers & advisors in ‘this’ space to successfully run and fulfil our award winning Zero2Hero Apprentice program that Matt started in 2009.
By using as many ‘complementary services’ as possible Millwood has successful placed 15 Zero2Hero Apprentices into purposeful paid employment. Not content with with this huge achievement, Matt and his wife – Clare started the Woodmor Foundation CIC in October 2020.
The Royal Albert Hall have introduced several initiatives that were based on suggestions made in their comprehensive annual Wellbeing Survey completed between March and October 2022, such as Paws in Work and games night increasing social wellbeing and reducing stress.
Some fantastic suggestions made in the survey from 2021 which the wellbeing network implemented e.g. embedding wellbeing in culture and role modelling, e.g., executive leaders taking lunch breaks in their diary. Two-way communication is provided such as All Staff meeting and Staff Forum.
During the pandemic, regular emails and video messages from the Hall’s CEO that kept all employees aware of organisational changes due to the coronavirus. I was impressed with the development of the National Arts Wellbeing Collective, founded in 2019.
The Hall has made a commitment to positively impact mental and physical health & wellbeing. Implementing a ClassPass Membership, yoga classes and massages, introducing a Cycle to Work scheme to encourage staff to cycle into work, more sustainable and better for physical health and wellbeing. Walking meetings are also becoming more frequent as endorsed by the Hall’s CEO, this encourages office staff to leave their desks and get screen free time and generate new ideas.
They have developed an Equality Diversity and Inclusion Committee connected to the Staff Forum. They have supported the health and well-being of low-paid workers, through the suggestions box in stewards’ area, they are paid the London Living Wage, have access to free financial health checks, Noise-Z card – information for staff affected by noise.
To ensure as a company that we maintain the leading edge in our industry sector, investment in our team, their health and wellbeing and their capabilities is high on the agenda and central to our success.
We created a Wellbeing Team, and the role of Wellbeing Champions with individuals who are MHFA trained. We focused our efforts on wellbeing and trained our employees on “Managing Health and Wellbeing, Managing Stress and utilising several tools to ensure individuals are educated in the importance of “Selfcare”.
Our Wellbeing Strategy is focus on five key health pillars are; Mental, Physical, Lifestyle, Social and Financial.
We established an employee forum in 2021 with inclusivity at its core, enabling employees to contribute and have meaningful discussion regarding our culture, approaches to health and wellbeing, our values and diversity in the workplace. Equality and Diversity training is mandatory, and we believe this supports an open and transparent culture.
The wellbeing initiatives are making a significant impact on the organisations – it has resulted in people working more collaboratively. We have a wellbeing calendar each year which is created based on employee feedback.
The activities include; raising awareness on health issues, promoting positive steps that individuals can take. We have a range of wellbeing initiatives from wreath making, “tea and talk”, lifestyle coaches and financial wellbeing workshops.
Not only is this supporting the direction of the business but is also making a significant impact on the individual, giving them more confidence, a positive outlook, and a purposeful mindset.
Threads Styling is a female-founded, female-led, and majority-female (78%) workforce. After a year of high turnover where more than 40% of exits were involuntary due to restructuring trust in the people team was low.
Last year as the team was coming out of lockdown and dealing with so much change, there needed to be more wellbeing focus. After surveying the population, it was clear that there were basics that would help their team first. Starting with financial wellbeing, offering one off cost of living bonuses of up to 1K to all employees on less than 30K. Making sure offices had food so that people who were struggling toward payday could eat in the offices. For low paid team members who travel for work, they trialled travel cards to remove the need to pay up front and claim back.
Once these basics were in place, they then hired a well-being specialist who is a trained psychotherapist and well-being psychologist as a permanent member of the team with direct reporting into the CPO to allow them access. Covid had exacerbated the silos in the teams, and with her support they put in place a six step plan for wellbeing, conducted no exit interviews across the business and have built a comprehensive wellbeing plan including how to be successful at work, personal resilience, group coaching.
The program is designed so that all sessions are run cross functionally, with “climate engineers’ in each team helping to embed the interventions. Using two measures, an employee engagement score and a wellbeing index score, Threads track the impact of the 6 step plan and have already seen a significant shift in the lowest scores of “the companies teams work together in an efficient and cooperative way” and “I am able to switch off and re-energise when I’m not at work” through the workshop wellbeing and coaching calendar, and through the commit to switch program which uses visual aids on digital platforms to indicate when people are working.
Tobermore are strongly committed to our employees’ Health & Wellbeing. This has a top down approach and is very much embedded into our company culture.
Last year saw the implementation of our Culture & Wellbeing committee. This group consists of 12 employees who represent each division in our company and this ensures cross functional support is adhered to. The committee analysed our annual employee survey where feedback was gained into wellbeing.
From this we produced a wellbeing calendar where every month we promote a different topic area and initiatives and support is provided on this topic. In February we supported ‘Health Heart’ month where we had a nutritionist to talk about how we can lead a healthy lifestyle, March we had ‘Eat Healthy, Be healthy’ where we created our own recipe book, employees provided healthy tips/recipes and this was produced as an e-book to our employees, August we supported Menopause and had information sessions with a specialist on this important topic, it was good for male colleagues to also be aware of this for partner support and for Management to be educated on the signs to look out for.
We have a tailored wellbeing app which covers a wide range of services to include a 24/7 counselling support line, we have a MyMindPal app for mediation and relaxation services. We offer fruit to employees daily.
Our initiatives have impacted our company culture, our recent survey showed 88% of our workforce would recommend Tobermore as a great place to work.
Trayport is effective in delivering impactful wellbeing initiatives, proven with 73% of employees recommending the company as a great place to work in our 2022 survey. Trayport’s strategic approach to a quality wellbeing experience is supported by messaging that maintains engagement, alleviates anxiety, reduces stress, provides a greater sense of security to employees and shows that “they care”.
Measures first introduced to address the “second pandemic” have continued to provide employees with tools and resources to promote positive mental health, playing a significant part in maintaining low turnover during the ‘Great Resignation’, as 87% of staff feel accepted by immediate coworkers.
The mental and physical health benefits package is relevant and competitive, including Lifeworks, a 24/7 assistance programme, private healthcare (236 sign ups), and health screenings. In 2022, £64,944.97 was claimed in Fitness allowance, with approvals for numerous gym memberships, and mental health platforms such as Headspace & yoga classes, this is on top of free football games and a netball season.
Trayport’s mental health platform ‘Unmind’ is used widely, with 274 members and 5,000 minutes of content consumed. Building on this and in recognition of World Mental Health Day, Trayport hosted a Q&A with Dr Alex George helping staff to gain perspective on their personal well-being and how to manage mental health.
Finish Early Friday’s, an incentive to encourage staff to take time away from their desk, returned in 2022, demonstrating at Trayport employee wellbeing is not just a knee-jerk reaction, but a core, meaningful part of their strategy.
Category C: Public sector / non-profit organisations
We know our people are our patients’ and supporters’ greatest asset, and so we aim to give our colleagues the knowledge, skills and tools to support their wellbeing holistically, so they can thrive at work.
In July 2022 we launched THRIVE, reflecting our peoples’ wellbeing priorities: mental, physical, financial, social and learning. THRIVE brings together regular content, as well as contributions from our colleagues who tell their own stories. We also host events drawing on the expertise of internal SMEs and trusted partners, such as, Octopus MoneyCoach and Able Futures, as well as a panel with Jake Mills and Steve Gilbert from Hub of Hope. Working with Octopus MoneyCoach we aim to increase colleagues’ money confidence, and to date 50% of our people have had 121 coaching.
Regular checkins and polls encourage interaction, whilst our Menopause Café and Parents and Carers Network meetings enable our colleagues to share their experiences and support their peers. We also host ‘body-doubling’ sessions, which provide a space where they can virtually co-work and focus. Wellbeing at Anthony Nolan starts before Day 1, as we acknowledge that many of the people who join the organisation have a personal connection and so we ensure managers have conversations before people start.
Wellbeing is highlighted in our inductions, moving us away from the idea that it is just something we think about when we’re not feeling at our best, and we have expanded our reflective practice group sessions to support teams working on our patient appeals and supporters.
The British Library has made tremendous effort to support all staff in the new post pandemic workplace. Whilst 2021 was mainly signposting support, 2022/23 has been a year of embedding real support ensuring that mental health and well-being is a golden thread throughout every interaction with our staff.
New manager development programmes have launched to support a more hybrid workforce and modules include topics of well-being such as psychological safety. Every Quarter we run all staff sessions on a well-being action plan which now features as part of our regular performance and career discussions.
We have teamed up with great training organisations to deliver sessions on financial well-being for staff including; personal financial planning, financial well-being lunch and learns and sessions by the Money and Pensions Service around cost of living crisis. One of our most popular new programmes is supporting menopause at work with over 60 people attending our first session earlier this year. As part of mental health awareness week we successfully launched a number of programmes including a new peer buddies scheme to support loneliness and isolation.
Our new mental health and well-being strategy will also launch this year with a focus on embedded, continuous support and compassionate leadership.
With commitment from the very top we have been able to deliver creative initiatives making a genuine difference to our colleagues, which include:
• Creating a new staff network focusing on staff financial hardship which identified solutions delivering a tangible impact, enabling the organization to respond addressing real issues.
• Launching an internal flexible resource-pool as an opportunity for staff to undertake additional paid work and gain more skills which also enables us to engage existing staff for roles, to date, 55 employees have joined.
• Delivered support sessions by our OH/EAP provider, CAB and internal staff on financial-planning, financial well-being, mental health and physical health.
• Our local mental-health campaign, Champion the Change promotes awareness of mental health in the workplace through the ‘Employer Pledge’ which supports organisations to take positive action, end mental health stigma and discrimination and develop a positive mental-health culture.
Our youtube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDpItKnrEEA shows our Chief Executive, Rachael Shimmin talking about this work. Actions delivered include – podcast series, health & well-being management training, wellness action plans, ‘our voice’ employee blog channels
• Created a one-stop-support-shop for employees, making it easier to find and access support.
• Created a staff award recognizing health and well-being work
• Setup confidential debt advice sessions.
• Extended e-learning to include personal budgeting/financial planning.
• Regular reminders about staff benefits, discounts and offers
• Worked with staff networks, employee reps and managers in delivering additional support. We are very proud of what we have done to support our colleagues continue to explore new ways to continue this critical work.
Guy’s and St. Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust employs 25,000+ staff. and delivers 2.9 million+ patient contacts p.a. across Lambeth and Southwark boroughs along with tertiary specialist care for patients referred nationally and internationally. The pandemic placed staff under extreme pressure. The Staff Wellbeing and Recovery plan was built at pace to augment our existing staff and wellbeing programme through substantial additional funding from Guy’s and St. Thomas’ Charity.
This included:
• Wellbeing Zones and hubs: dedicated areas for staff solace/support
• Virtual staff triage for staff physiotherapy, psychology, stop smoking team and dietetics
• 1st NHS staff long-covid clinic
• Enhanced staff psychology and spiritual care services
• Upskilling of staff/managers wellbeing conversations skills and confidence
• Development of wellbeing champion network with formal induction and support Outputs:
• 5x increase in staff psychologists and 3x staff chaplains increasing appointments fourfold: low mood/anxiety measures consistently decreasing
• 1:1 support all accessible via direct self-referral via virtual triaging: significant reduction in waiting lists
• Mandatory module included within new cross-Trust People Manager Programme (Safe and Healthy Team): embeds wellbeing conversations in core skill set for line managers from Feb 2023
• 400% increase in staff-wellbeing engagement at events, workshops and presentations
• 218 wellbeing champions provide satellite signposting and health and wellbeing support at team level: 12-15 recruited per month
• Pioneering Long Covid clinic: blueprint for the NHS England programme launched 2022
• NHS Staff Survey scores: above average in all areas relating to People Promise (64% vs. 56% agreeing positive action taken on HWB and 94% proud to work here)
HJE Started art therapy during Covid (2021) – allowing all staff to contribute, explored difficult experiences, conveyed emotions into art and increased engagement.
HJE conducts an annual Staff Survey which includes questions on health & wellbeing, they identified areas to improve and have taken action, demonstrating employees are consulted and involved in decisions on health & wellbeing policies and initiatives.
The Hospital runs a quarterly Magic Moments where an individual or department can be nominated by colleagues or patients. They are presented with a certificate and tokens by the CEO and celebrated by colleagues – ensuring employees are fairly recognized and rewarded.
HJE have made a commitment to positively impact employee’s health & wellbeing and encourage physical activity through yoga classes, their annual 5k walk, staff are encouraged to attend along with patients, relatives, and residents, fundraising for the HJE Hospice – encouraging a sense of community wellbeing.
HJE have implemented a second series of listening exercises in 2022, a great opportunity for employees to raise issues and provide feedback and the CEO and executive leaders get back to them within a set time, this allows for two-way communication and open conversations, builds trust and psychological safety and demonstrates health & wellbeing is embedded within the culture of the organization.
They have implemented several suggestion boxes around the organization as a means of supporting the “You have the Power” campaign. The Exec Chef is actively promoting healthy eating by extending healthy eating options, committing to reducing use of plastic and reducing food waste.
The national staff Health and Wellbeing team at NHS England have been working to support the wellbeing of staff across the NHS since 2018 and in this time, have been able to drive forward a number of culture transformations across the NHS.
Moving away from the more traditional reactive approach to supporting wellbeing, the team have worked hard to encourage the use of data and evidence to develop a proactive approach that addresses staff wellbeing (and subsequently retention) from three different perspectives – individual staff support, line manager and leader support, and organisational or system level support.
The Health and Wellbeing team at NHS England have not only developed a national staff health and wellbeing support offer that includes access to staff support lines, free access to mental health apps, dedicated staff mental health hubs and bespoke coaching programmes for ethnic minority staff, they have also supported a wider culture change across the NHS, where a focus on staff wellbeing has become a priority – not a ”nice to have”.
The team have been working closely with Integrated Care Systems to pilot, develop and evaluate locally owned health and wellbeing strategies, they have facilitated the introduction of thousands of Health and Wellbeing Champions across the NHS, they have defined the role of a Wellbeing Guardian and begun the journey to integrate primary care staff into the NHS family.
Whilst this journey is not over, I am really proud of the great work the team have delivered over the last 2-3 years.
SCW has a proven suite of established wellbeing initiatives to help staff, demonstrating our sustainable commitment to proactive wellbeing support.
This is set out in our Building a Culture of Belonging strategy, which has a 3 step strategic commitment from our Executive Team which has wellbeing at its core.
Wellbeing initiatives include: Survive and Thrive Hour – a protected hour for all staff that can be flexed to account schedules and priorities, has received highly positive feedback as a wellbeing benefit
Time to Talk series: talks and blogs creating a safe space to connect and discuss various wellbeing topics with personal stories for authenticity and connection
Initiated a Mental Health in the workplace provision review which is moving to delivery phase
Mental Health First Aiders: Over 50 trained staff across the business trained as MHFA, informal peer support.
Agile/Flexible working – 90% in staff survey say this has a positive impact on wellbeing.
DPT Mindful Employer: committed to supporting mental health at work and actively promote
Mental Health Awareness Week each year
Extensive Wellbeing Intranet page – includes Manager’s Toolkit and Framework for wellbeing conversations, links to wellbeing e-Learning platform and monthly wellbeing pulse check survey Staff Survey results indicate staff feel positively about our actions: 96% feel SCW takes positive action on health and wellbeing.
Lunch and learn topics on Anxiety Disorders, Discussing Menopause, Mindfulness Our Wellbeing survey regularly shows over 75% of staff having positive wellbeing, with sickness absence less than 3%
We launched our 3 year wellbeing plan to improve culture and wellbeing. This built on work done during 2021: introduction of TRiM (Trauma Risk Management), workplace mediators (help resolve workplace conflict, confidentially), Work In Confidence (online, confidential, speak-up platform), and family-friendly policies. A director from our Executive Team sponsors the plan, ensuring improvements from the top of the organisation.
This year we’ve continued with the roll-out of mental health training for managers, as well as providing bespoke training for our Inspectorate officers. ‘Mind’ deliver both courses.
The latter was much needed by our frontline colleagues, and covers mental health conditions they may encounter when visiting people, keeping themselves mentally well, and improving their own resilience.
TRiM has been boosted by recruiting more practitioners from across departments to provide better geographical coverage. TRiM aims to help colleagues who have been affected by traumatic events and prevent conditions like PTSD.
We’ve introduced a wellbeing and resilience module into our programme for managers, delivered by the wellbeing advisor and L&D team. Some colleagues carry firearms/captive bolts, or have access to controlled drugs. A support panel was developed to assist managers of colleagues struggling with mental health issues, to determine whether or not to remove or return access to this equipment.
Signposting has improved; all wellbeing support/resources in one place on our intranet, supported by regular wellbeing comms. We’ve moved to a new OH provider who is proactive with wellbeing and mental health, and are supporting us developing our health surveillance.
At Sanctuary Care our mission is to enrich the lives of our residents and the amazing staff caring for them. To achieve this, we do everything we can to support their mental and physical wellbeing.
We want to create an open culture where people can talk freely about mental health, without judgement. After commissioning wellbeing research in 2021 with our care home managers, we used this to shape the majority of our actions over the past 18 months.
Our mental health strategy is being rolled out across our care homes in England and Scotland, and our central services. This includes delivery of internally recognised 2-day Mental Health First Aiders (MHFA) course, which we’ve used to train over 100 MHFAs in 2022 alone. Our aim is to have at least two in every home.
Open to any role, the training gives people the skills to spot the signs that someone is experiencing mental ill health, approach the topic comfortably and signpost effectively.
We’ve created our own Mental Wellbeing eLearning, written by our Learning and Development team available to all our staff, which raises awareness of mental wellbeing, spotting the signs and symptoms and how to support one another. Our ‘Cultivating Confident Conversations’ workshops and 121 sessions guide managers on starting these conversations, so we are compassionate, open and supportive.
We’ve launched menopause training, to raise awareness about how symptoms can affect people, so we can talk openly and respectfully support our colleagues.
We’ve invested in a service by Aviva, where staff can have consultations for mental health, bereavement and nutritional support, a health check, digital GP appointments and expert second medical opinions for employees and family members – all for free. Our staff networks, such as our Disability Network and PRISM (for LGBTQ+ employees and allies) connect colleagues who share experiences, support one another and drive positive change.
By empowering our staff to look after their own mental health and well-being and confidently support one another, we will create a culture where people thrive.
Over the last year we’ve successfully improved our wellbeing approach so our people actively engage with resources and see wellbeing as a golden thread that runs through all aspects of St John life.
We’ve implemented incredible Wellbeing Supporters with in-depth knowledge of resources who actively promote wellbeing through talks, team meetings and welcome events.
They’re actively involved in distributing resources, offering one-to-one support through listening, encouragement, care, signposting and conversations. Some attended the late Queen’s funeral to support colleagues who were keeping people safe.
We’ve grown our Chaplaincy Service to help support our people when it’s needed most, pastorally and spiritually. Chaplains receive wellbeing training and support teams through difficult times, i.e. death of colleagues.
Our Wellbeing Lead writes weekly articles, helping people be proactive with their wellbeing, and a monthly blog to address wellbeing from a more personal level. This brings fantastic engagement and inspires many to make positive changes.
We’re working with the Clinical, Safeguarding, Occupational Health and People & Culture teams, ensuring our standard documents and email responses contain an offer of wellbeing support and signposting to our resources to help support people facing stressful situations.
We’ve broadened training for managers to include modules on supportive conversations which helps them have more meaningful chats that include mental health and wellbeing. We’ve introduced a wellbeing section into one-to-one and personal review processes. Manager support was developed to include bespoke wellbeing sessions for team meetings and one-to-one support for managers dealing with employees struggling with mental health and wellbeing.
The NHS and the staff who work in it to provide services have been under extreme pressure over the last few years and as a large acute hospital trust we recognise the value of supporting our staff to achieve improved emotional wellbeing, improved physical health and a healthy work-life balance.
As such we developed and secured initial funding to enhance our in-house services. This resulted in multi-professional OH services, staff physiotherapy services and Psychological Support and Counselling Services (PSC) all working together to support our staff. OH successfully supports an average of 130 staff members a month to remain in work or to return to work in a supported, healthy and structured way.
The staff physiotherapy service works proactively across UHD to help reduce sickness absence providing face to face specialist assessments and treatments, developing onsite staff exercise access and education, supporting interventions with numerous departments across different sites. The PSC service has a primary aim of reducing the number of days lost to sickness absence due to stress and mental health and provides rapid and specialist access to a range of evidence-based interventions. To date over 1,900 staff have accessed the service with data indicating a significant reduction in sickness absence. Staff feedback shows that these services are highly valued and aid in the support of health and wellbeing.
We will continue to review, and develop our service and measure the impact that it makes and have been able to move from a pilot to a substantive offer.
Colleague who has made the most difference to workplace mental health and wellbeing over the past year:
Category A: True leader
With people’s personal and professional lives more indistinguishably linked than ever before, Jane Collins is dedicated to improving the employee experience, pushing for progress, and campaigning for employee wellbeing, diversity, equity, and inclusion wherever possible.
Since the merger and creation of Curinos in June 2021, Jane has implemented a variety of programs and initiatives aimed at promoting holistic wellbeing at work.
One such initiative involved creating an intranet site and online community space with educational and informative content available to the company’s entire network of international employees.
Alongside colleague stories and discussion panels, the intranet hosts a variety of wellness resources and, more importantly, contact information for 13 newly trained mental health first-aiders (MHFAs). One herself and with familial experience in the realm, she is a champion for mental health in the workplace and organised the training. MHFAs are available to all colleagues for supportive conversations and guidance, backed by the company’s Employee Assistance Program.
Jane has also implemented a Reverse Mentoring Program for executive leaders by junior colleagues, helping them understand the impact of business decisions and gain a different perspective on the workplace experience.
This is further embedded by wellbeing and mental health topics and awareness days, featuring regularly on companywide monthly Town Halls sponsored by the CEO.
From organising volunteering opportunities to rolling out a virtual coffee app, Jane recognises that these initiatives help promote employee wellbeing.
This has been reflected in the significantly improved scores for wellbeing and belonging in the annual employee survey.
Jim was one of the first cohort of trained Mental Health First Aiders (MHFAs) for our business when the scheme launched in November 2021; and regularly contributed towards activities to promote the services of MHFAs and reduce the stigma of mental illness within our Company. In May 2022 Jim participated in a LinkedIn Live event organised by the Offsite Alliance, for Mental Health Awareness week. This event was to highlight the particular mental health challenges for people in the construction industry.
In October 2022, Jim volunteered to deliver a presentation to our Group Executive Leaders to promote the importance of Mental Wellbeing in our business, in celebration and support of World Mental Health Day. He has since delivered the presentation to leadership teams across the business and having this awareness and support for promoting Mental Health and addressing Mental Health issues at the most senior levels has enabled us to continuously improve our services and support for colleagues. He is currently working with our HR and Health & Safety teams to “re-purpose” this presentation into a podcast, to create a more inclusive message to all colleagues, for launch on World Health & Safety Day in April this year. Finally, Jim practices what he preaches. As a manager within the business, Jim has supported a colleague who had been on long term sick leave due to mental health issues, with focus on enabling them to return to the workplace. Jim is a true ambassador for Mental Wellbeing for our Company.
Like Spiderman, Javier believes that with ‘great power comes great responsibility.’
As chair of Business in the Community’s Wellbeing Campaign Leadership Team, Javier’s mission is to engage BITC’s membership, which employs 20% of the UK’s workforce, and other stakeholders, to transform workplace wellbeing. His ambition is to impact 5.5m employees across colleagues directly employed by BITC’s members, of which c.2m households are impacted by poor mental health.
Javier’s strategy challenges the unacceptable status quo by highlighting urgent actions necessary to address high attrition and presenteeism, exacerbated by the challenges of recruiting and retaining talent, resulting in low productivity which are not sustainable.
Under Javier’s leadership, BITC is backing business to revolutionise ways of working that redefine success by prioritising people and unlocking the value of a thriving workforce.
This is a collaborative movement with Chief Financial Officers, business executives, and McKinsey Health Institute collectively publishing a ground breaking report which for the first time, aggregates all the evidence for the compelling economic value proposition for embedding thriving employees at the heart of organisational purpose and business strategy. The report is endorsed by the University of Oxford and represents the first step change in a workplace revolution, due to be launched at the Watercooler event on 26 April. A measurement tool, underpinned by the best evidence to achieve consistent reporting, is being launched in June which prioritises the sustainable growth of human capital.
Javier has lived experience of being on the dark side of mental health and is passionate about building a movement for change.
Sarah Gashier used her passion and enthusiasm for well-being to support colleagues at Westminster City Council alongside her day job there. She significantly helped to improve the organisational culture around wellbeing through a wide range of activities and their impact.
This included:
• Developing the new wellbeing champions network in 2019, which reached across all parts of the organisation and created many activists including senior leaders and team managers to the wellbeing pioneers group.
• Developing a ‘healthy conversations’ toolkit for line managers and that enabled leaders to have better conversations with teams.
• She worked with senior leaders on shaping the wellbeing strategy of the organisation between 2018 until 2022, including building sponsorship of wellbeing, in line with the London Healthy Workplace Award recommendations.
• Creating a wellbeing survey during the pandemic for a large, struggling frontline department to gather evidence on the state of colleagues’ wellbeing, presenting the findings to senior leaders and implementing interventions and signposting to appropriate support structures.
• Running events to raise awareness e.g. a Stoptober alcohol-free pub quiz and worked with local businesses to secure awards at no cost for the winning team that took part.
• Speaking on podcasts about healthy eating and delivering webinars on mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic, and articles about burnout and healthy eating at work
• Delivering training on nutrition and health & wellbeing to help raise awareness for others in how they might support their own wellbeing.
Sarah should be recognised for her passion, commitment and impact!
Chris Hart-Jones inspired employees from across Lubrizol’s five UK sites to come together with the idea of raising £25,000 for mental health charity Mind.
His idea, the “Lubrizol Olympics”, was for as many employees as possible to complete the 5,882 miles between the UK and Tokyo where the 2020 Olympics were due to be held, via a series of distance challenges.
With many people finding exercise beneficial for mental health, the idea for the Lubrizol Olympics was highly apt. But with the arrival of Covid the joint activities could not take place so Chris led the way in inspiring staff from across Lubrizol to complete distances on their own, which they did by swimming, running, rowing walking and cycling.
Some incredible efforts were made including one couple running, walking and cycling the distance between Land’s End and John O’Groats. Chris himself completed 300 miles on his Peloton bike, the distance between all Lubrizol’s sites.
After lockdowns he led Lubrizol’s walking challenges, taking teams up Mount Snowdon, Mam Tor, the famously gruelling Yorkshire Three Peaks challenge and Scafell Pike. It was the first time in Lubrizol’s history that staff from different sites had come together to raise money for one charity. After more than two years, nearly 70 staff supported by more than 800 family, friends and colleagues achieved 8,542 miles and raised £28,252 for Mind.
Chris won the company’s Christine Sewell award for his volunteering efforts, donating the £500 to the total raised for Mind.
Emily is Global People Experience Co-ordinator for EssenceMediacom and is a passionate driver of workplace initiatives, within her role, engaging colleagues, influencing senior leaders and budget holders and as an individual advocate for good practice supporting workplace mental health and an activist in driving the agenda forwards.
Emily began working with a mental health provider to grow the Allies programme that had been established in UK MediaCom in 2017, across all 40 WPP UK agencies.
This programme ensured everyone had someone they could talk to about their mental health, when and where they wanted. Emily ensured an efficient and effective recruitment process for Allies, engaging HR and senior leaders across all agencies, becoming an Ally herself, demonstrating directly her support and commitment to this programme.
Emily is full of enthusiasm and vitality, ensuring the Ally community is engaged, regular check-ins, shares resources and provides peer support for each other.
She supported Ally launches in US and Singapore, sharing best practice and looking for solutions to address stigma, along with the flexibility to adapt a programme to start at the right place. She is innovative, producing Ally videos in local language creating human interaction, which is not easily conveyed in a brochure.
Emily has played a key role in enabling the provision of over 500 active Allies globally across WPP. EssenceMediacom data shows : 200+ Allies, 47 markets, 75% have had conversations with their colleagues about mental health. 80% have seen Ally programmes promoted in their local office.
James Jackson is the SCW EDI and Wellbeing Programme Lead who has delivered significant programmes of work to support workplace mental health and wellbeing in the past year to the benefit of SCW staff. His work includes:
His work has had a positive impact on staff wellbeing and feelings of inclusion, with our recent staff survey scoring very highly for staff feeling positive about the organisation supporting their wellbeing and being an inclusive employer.
In 2017 Jonny established the PositiveMinds programme at global snacking business pladis, and inaugural McVitie’s social partnership with Mind. The partnership lives on in major grocers today reaching millions.
Jonny’s passion for breaking the stigma, led him to create a strategy for the Finance profession, where he co-led the Mental Fitness in Business strategy. He also volunteers his time as a Trustee of the Mental Health Foundation.
Despite a demanding day job as Finance leader, he establishes programmes that positively impact at scale. In 2020, Jonny set the vision for the Wellbeing Blend, a ground breaking colleague Network, and is Exec Sponsor.
Jonny is an inspiration with regard to all facets of mental health for all those who come into contact with him. At Starbucks in the past year he has taken an informal group of diverse individuals, to create the first ever employee network in Starbucks GLOBALLY to focus on wellbeing.
Jonny’s drive has seen the focus of wellbeing shift from 500 head office employees, to 6,000 plus retail partners, and reach to regions as far as wide as Latin America – All with the purpose of breaking the stigma around mental health and to simply send hope and support to everyone.
His openness, passion, and unrelenting drive to ensure the resources, structure, and environment is in place to allow EVERY Individual to ensure every practicality is in place to allow EVERY individual to maximise their own wellbeing is infectious, inspiring, and most importantly – making a difference.
The construction sector has some of the worst rates of mental health than any other sector in the UK, with men in the industry three times more likely to die from suicide than the average male*.
This struck a chord with G&H Group’s Managing Director Graham Kelly, and in September 2022, G&H launched its ‘You’re Not Alone’ Campaign. Eight introductory workshops delivered by Graham and Breathing Space HR highlighted how to spot the signs and support men’s mental health.
Graham Kelly said: “Mental health can affect anyone, so raising awareness and providing help is essential. The introductory sessions were voluntary, so we were delighted to see 120 attending and 16 people sign-up to become Wellbeing Champions with level 2 training received. Breaking down the stigma of mental health issues is an ongoing battle. By encouraging people to open up and seek help, we will – slowly but surely – make it as commonplace as reporting physical illnesses.”
G&H Wellbeing Champions and Breathing Space HR provide ongoing training and workshops alongside the national health and wellbeing calendar covering a wide range of topics, e.g. how to help people manage and avoid stress, identify and understand anxiety and spot signs of mental health illness in others.
Plus, employee well-being tips, e.g. financial advice, benefits of healthy eating, exercise and smoking cessation, will be promoted. Staff also have access to the DevelopME online portal from Breathing Space HR as well as being sent regular best practice blog posts.
*Citation Building Minds research
Josh is a renowned mental health and wellbeing campaigner. Three initiatives come to mind that support this nomination:
1. Speaking at the inaugural Wellbeing Research & Policy Conference (July 2022, University of Oxford), raising awareness of how businesses and leaders can better shape wellbeing and mental health policies at work. This conference saw the launch of the World Wellbeing Movement of whom EssenceMediaCom are a founding member.
2. Launching an advisory board and developing a manifesto calling for a change to how the UK Government supports companies (250+) in their efforts to manage employee mental health in the future of work.
3. Creating a policy proposal for a new era of mental health, positioning workplace mental health as a fundamental worker right. Alongside a comprehensive plan to lobby government to bring about change. The time frame for this is 2023/24.
Mark Malcomson has been the Principal and Chief Executive of City Lit, Europe’s largest adult education provider, since 2011. He is a dedicated advocate of adult learning and its mental health benefits which he champions to various stakeholders, including the GLA and DfE.
Alongside Baroness Hollins, Mark co-founded the Mental Wealth Festival, which is now in its 9th year. The Festival delivers talks, events and courses offering support for improving mental health and wellbeing.
Staff, tutors, and students across the College can hear keynote speakers including Professor Paul Dolan, Grayson Perry and Bryony Gordon reflect on their own well-being experiences. They also get the opportunity to share their insights on building mental resilience and tips for maintaining mental health.
Mark fosters creative and brilliant initiatives to promote workplace well-being at City Lit and throughout the wider adult education sector.
This has made him the perfect role model across the community, achieved through exchanging knowledge via panel discussions with mental health campaigners such as Ruby Wax, Paul Farmer and Clarke Carlisle at various events across the country.
Category B: Unsung hero / heroine
Jemima has made an enormous difference to workplace mental health and wellbeing at Grant Thornton over the past year, bringing people together and encouraging open conversation about mental health through her passion, honesty, hard work, and infectious sunshine energy.
Jemima works in the Inclusion and Diversity team at Grant Thornton as an Inclusion Advisor and takes a proactive role in promoting our health and wellbeing strategy.
As part of her role Jemima manages our online Health Hub of resources for healthy working, and coordinates our 400 Inclusion Allies, 70 Mental Health First Aiders and our Health Champion network, all of whom contribute to supporting the mental health and wellbeing of our 5500 colleagues across 22 offices.
Jemima takes the lead in promoting awareness days and activities on a national basis across our office network, via information sharing on our intranet and arranging in person or virtual events.
These have included campaigns for World Mental Health Day 2022, Mental Health Awareness Week 2022, a cultural awareness cook-out event for Black History Month in October 2022 and Time to Talk Day 2023.
These have all supported us to share experiences, build deeper connections and bring our whole selves to work. Jemima’s contributions have helped to empower our people to take control of their wellbeing and mental health and thrive in their personal and professional lives.
Tex Bourton deserves to be recognised for his commitment and drive in ensuring that talking about mental health is not a taboo subject at Grundon. As a waste business our workforce is predominantly male, with a large proportion being of the older generation and many spend the majority of the day working alone.
Before the business launched its mental health campaign, many of these individuals would never consider or even think about mental health.
Tex has gone above and beyond his general remit as Operational Training Manager, by delivering half day awareness sessions to every employee. This started with the drivers but due to the success it was then rolled out to every employee. Tex’s style and life experiences means these sessions are very real and ensures our colleagues can relate to it and realise that mental health is something everyone deals with. Feedback has been exceptional, with statements such as ‘best training’, ‘has helped me make sense of a family members issues’ and ‘given me confidence to reach out’. Following these sessions many people speak to Tex regarding their issues or family members problems. Despite his other work priorities, he continue to support these people, and signposts them to places they can get help, such as the EAP scheme.
Without Tex’s commitment and hardwork the Grundon workplace would not be as mentally healthy as it is today, hence we feel he deserves to win this award
Our HR Business Partner, Sophie Cutts has been instrumental in the accessibility and success of our Hardship Fund.
Established to support employees during the cost-of-living crisis, this fund offers a non-repayable grant of up to £2,000 for applicants who are experiencing hardships, such as involuntary household loss of income leading to personal hardship, inability to cover funeral costs for a family member, or living in temporary accommodation after their home has been made uninhabitable by a natural disaster.
Sophie has been a guiding light for our employees by providing a safe, comfortable, and judgement-free space for them to share their circumstances and request financial relief.
Sophie was responsible for creating and putting forward impactful proposals to the deciding committee on the employee’s behalf. As our application process requires gathering sensitive personal information, Sophie took a people-focused approach to build relationships with the applicants, understand their current situation, and identify the long-term outcomes of receiving the funding.
As well as providing emotional support, Sophie coached applicants through our various additional support options, from our Hastee Pay scheme, to flexible working arrangements, and counselling through our EAP.
Sophie has been dedicated to preventing future hardship and finding a solution regardless of the application’s outcome. We’re delighted that an employee that has benefitted from the fund shared this feedback on Sophie’s support, “not only have you made the process as comfortable as possible, but you’ve also been non-judgmental, genuine, and sincere throughout. I honestly cannot thank you enough”.
Alex has led the way on financial wellbeing for many years in a quiet & unassuming way. He’s built up his network of senior champions for the cause, connected the dots on the impact on colleagues & organisation, connected to all other pillars of the wellbeing strategy, listened to what colleagues really need & designed solutions to meet their needs.
He helped Co-op be the first retailer to have a salary advance product which has reduced, by 70%, the impact of money worries on colleagues.
Over time he’s helping shift colleagues towards a savings mindset and the use data from Wagestream clearly shows this – with savings rates up & financial resilience increasing for those colleagues.
For cost of living support, through listening he was able to design a support package that helped and included vouchers to spend in food stores as this wouldn’t cause an issue with state benefits payments.
What makes Alex the unsung hero is that he does this for colleagues & does not seek to be in the spotlight. His diligence and championing of their needs has helped Co-op to think differently about money matters.
Jo set up this Resilience Hub only in the past three years. Projects of this nature require multiple skills in building from scratch the team, its organisation and management, as well as developing the appropriate skills with the right knowledge and experiences to make the team sing from the same sheet, and interact effectively with their audience.
This hub has had a staggeringly successful impact on mental health of hundreds of people in the NHS and other public sector organisations, all colleagues, and has devoted skills and time to primary prevention of mental ill health in teams.
The impact of a small number of people on a huge number of staff should be recognised as a triumph for Jo Jordan.
Dee Juneja became Chair of the Disabled and Neurodiverse Staff network in October 2014 at the University of the Arts.
She finally stepped down as Chair in December. ‘My aim has been to create a network that is supportive of each other and contributes to improving workplace support, and to open up opportunities for disabled and neurodiverse staff. The DSN has a valuable voice’. There is now thriving network of over 100 staff from across UAL, who support each other, share concerns and experiences.
Over the years, the DSN has run many awareness events for disability, neurodiversity, mental health. They’ve done some fun stuff and been on museum and exhibition visits, and seen an amazing disabled dance performance. Some key achievements include a recommendation to the University to create the Central Workplace Adjustment Fund for reasonable adjustments and support.
On a personal level, Dee was keen to see improvements to physical access and she brought about the allocation of a single point of contact for access in Estates Services. The network has been involved in consultations for many processes and policies including workplace adjustments and Digital accessibility.
The role of the Network Chair is voluntary and was in addition to Dee’s full time job. This was challenging at times but Dee says, ‘it has always been worthwhile’. I have nominated Dee because she is an inspiration to many of us. I’ve picked up the baton from Dee and can see it will take four people to do the voluntary job she did on her own.
Final words from Dee are: I attended The Queen’s Garden Party at Buckingham Palace in May 2018, in recognition for my DSN work. I felt very honoured to have been selected by UAL to attend this event and have fond memories to treasure. I’m proud of the DSN’s achievements, and know it will keep growing and continue to have a voice.’
Over the past three years Dave has made a real difference to his colleagues’ wellbeing. Even when he is having a challenging time is the first to offer support to another.
During restrictions he was keen to make sure no-one felt isolated, holding online ‘cafes’, quizzes and bingos. Offering an ear and reaching out to anyone he felt might be lonely.
More recently he has been able to connect more directly, from posting uplifting messages on both social media and around the office, setting quizzes and games to get people talking, being a key member of the wellbeing team, encouraging people to go on wellbeing walks with him, mentoring those around him.
Dave is someone who is highly regarded by those he works with as he does everything quietly and without a fuss and he knows the value of making a small difference everyday.
In 2022, the RSPCA launched its wellbeing plan. The plan has been implemented by a new member of the team Ben who has been covering the Wellbeing advisor role temporarily.
Ben has been a huge asset to the RSPCA in helping make the plan a reality and helping many colleagues. He has also spearheaded the introduction of mental health training for managers and supervisors, as well as providing bespoke training for our Inspectorate officers.
The latter was much needed by our frontline colleagues, and covers mental health conditions they may encounter in people they visit during their duties, how to keep themselves mentally well, and improve their own resilience.
As TRiM coordinator he has boosted the number of practitioners to provide better geographical coverage. TRiM helps colleagues who have been affected by traumatic events and help prevent conditions like PTSD. A wellbeing and resilience module has been introduced into our training for line managers delivered by Ben.
He concluded work on a support panel procedure which assists managers of colleagues struggling with mental health issues, to determine whether or not to remove or return access of firearms and lethal drugs.
Ben has developed easy to understand and accessible wellbeing support/resources in one place on our intranet, supported by regular comms on mental health and other wellbeing topics. Ben also led the move to a new occupational health provider who are supporting us with occupational hygiene to develop our health surveillance.
Sam Walters has shown an exceptional commitment to mental health issues within the Metropolitan Police over the last 2 years. This is despite having to deal with her own mental health issues outside work. She has managed to resolve those issues and at the same time been able to offer help and assistance to police officers and staff within the organisation.
She has participated in various wellbeing events and gained her Met Police Blue Light Champion credentials in the process. She is also actively involved with menopausal issues and the impact this has on our staff.
She continues to seek out solutions that can assist our staff when they are experiencing difficulties. She will send out relevant comms to staff, signposting where to go for advice within the organisation and outside.
She also makes staff aware of publications such as the Shine weekly digest. Sam will also arrange team breakfast breaks in which staff can discuss work issues in an informal setting.
She has also arranged wellbeing mornings for staff when they can take time out to reflect on various issues around mental health. These are informal sessions in which staff are advised of warning signs to look out for in colleagues who may be struggling.
She has also trained to be a menopause champion to assist managers and runs her own menopause group for her work area. She has also completed a suicide prevention course and is training to be a UK Mental Health first aider.
I have no hesitation in recommending Sam for this category as I feel that she goes over and beyond her normal work remit.
The feedback we receive from our colleagues through varying channels is invaluable to shaping the business. Our colleague engagement surveys, Executive listening groups and Roadshows have shared lots of feedback and ideas which continue to shape the business direction of travel from a Mental Health and Wellbeing perspective.
Regular CHROMA committee meetings with representation from all business divisions offer another route for feedback to be passed from colleague to boardroom. The team share feedback and ideas from their departments, which are then turned into tangible action to form part of the business strategy.
Over the past 12 months, Atalian Servest have focused on the Mental Health and Wellbeing of its colleagues in a number of ways based on colleague feedback. Enhancing the number of Mental Health first aiders, launching a support line and encouraging a culture of openness through ‘Get Atalian Servest Talking’ events are a couple of ways in which the business has listened and acted.
Financial wellbeing has also be supported with the phased launch of a financial wellbeing tool. Dawn Whitworth, Chairperson of the Physical and Mental health network, has championed the business direction in this area, supported by the committee members and over 100 wider network members.
The Race, Ethnicity and Faith Network and LGTBQ+ and Gender network have affirmed their commitment to Mental with their commitments made through the Race at Work Charter and corporate membership to The LGBT in FM. 2023 is looking extremely promising for the business from a wellbeing point of view.
Over the last year, our People team have worked hard to create and deliver a mental health strategy. We have a global MHFA network, trained 164 crew with 120 to train to reach our MHFA goal of 10% global workforce trained by end of 2023. We safeguard, support and create community for our MHFA; every month the network meets with our Mental Health Lead for chats, offloading, sharing of best practice, risk assessing, upskilling and updating on strategy across the business.
We think it is of the upmost importance to ensure our MHFA are safeguarded and protected against vicarious trauma. Our MHFA wear lanyards/ high vis so our crew recognise who they are, we feature our MHFA biographies on our intranet to make the process personal and relatable. Our MHFA help us create mental health strategy, part of this is delivery of monthly Wellbeing Labs.
We tackle tangible and relevant subjects head-on. We battle stigma, challenge bias in these sessions (included mens mental health, suicide, menopause, burnout in hospitality). We recognise we tackle taboo subjects so ensure to provide content warnings and aftercare around the sessions to create psychologically safe environments.
We love our DEI forum, which meet fortnightly. It is made up of global crew from all levels/all areas of the business so is amazingly diverse and representative. Everything we do is sense-checked by our DEI forum, who work closely with the People team. We want to ensure every step we take is inclusive, accessible and conscious but also challenged!
Are you okay? These three words can make a big difference to a colleague who is struggling.
Our 43 Wellbeing Buddies are available to listen, confidentially, to anyone needing someone to talk to. Fundamental to the success of our People and Wellbeing Strategy (PaWS), where health and wellbeing are as important as anything else we do in a day, is our Wellbeing Buddy Network.
Buddies promote a culture of self-care, actively encouraging conversations about health and wellbeing.
Working cross directorate, they role model authenticity and wellbeing behaviours via National and Regional wellbeing teams, and affinity groups they represent, including, Men and Women’s groups, LGBTQ+i, Disability, BAME and Carers networks.
A Managers Agreement ensures we recruit people aligned to organisational behaviours, secures protected time for Buddy conversations and development, including, safeguarding, boundaries, empathic listening, DEI, disability awareness, mental health and ‘Getting comfortable’ with wellbeing conversations. In 2022, Buddies facilitated 80 conversations, with 57 colleagues, providing 47.2 hours of virtual or face-two-face support.
Having access to monthly safe space sessions and peer-to-peer support, Buddies reported that “Providing a space where we can be ourselves, it’s ok to say how we feel, to share experiences openly, using a wealth of knowledge and thought-provoking topics,’ was critical in maintaining wellbeing after emotionally challenging conversations.
A colleague shared, “It really helped having a buddy to talk to, I received a non-judgemental ear. After chatting, I felt able to broach issues with my manager. I wouldn’t hesitate to chat to a buddy again.”
The purpose of the HSBC mindfulness network is to create a culture and environment that allows our people to nurture their brains and harness their potential. This takes a preventive approach to mental health, and is available to all HSBC employees.
At the heart of this strategy is the creation of inclusive, collaborative, and connected communities, led by trained Mindfulness Champions.
These communities proactively embed mindful working in a highly relevant way, adapting as necessary to satisfy the needs of our diverse employee population. Our global employees experience a wide range of working environments, across many different countries, languages, and cultures.
Having our Champions in place enables us to tailor our services to suit different demographics without compromising the underlying authenticity. As Champions cover a wide range of departments across HSBC, this naturally gives us a high level of cross-departmental collaboration which has been key in maintaining high levels of consistency and quality.
There are over 100 global Mindfulness Champions who volunteer alongside their day job. They progress through our accredited Champion training programme, which trains them to deliver mindfulness sessions, as well as facilitate mindfulness courses to all global employees.
They are also delivering our Foundations course which consistently achieves 30% uplift in stress resilience, based on pre and post course surveys.
The NHS People Plan outlines the ambition to create cultures of wellbeing across the NHS, through the introduction of networks of Health and Wellbeing Champions to promote the importance of looking after your wellbeing. In 2021, Steph Roocroft began the project management of a national programme that aimed to support NHS organisations in rolling out and embedding Health and Wellbeing Champions at local level.
This programme includes:
• An e-learning module that helps colleagues understand the role and remit of a Champion
• A monthly development programme that Steph co-ordinates, identifying key note speakers and bringing together communities of Champions from all sectors of the NHS
• A regular bulletin to share ideas, best practice and learning opportunities
• A range of training and personal development opportunities including formal training through the RSPH Level 2 Understanding Health Improvement qualification
Steph has developed and maintains a network of over 3000 Health and Wellbeing Champions from across the NHS. In 2022 alone, Steph delivered 22 development sessions, supporting Champions to upskill and learn more about specific topic areas, including menopause, financial wellbeing, mental health and emotional health.
Quotes from attendees have included “Thank you, this was a really interesting workshop with lots of practical information we can share with our teams.” An evaluation that was conducted to understand how Champions are taking forward their new knowledge in their roles identified a range of means, including implementing drop-in sessions and wellbeing weeks, signposting staff to support and creating resource packs and newsletters for dissemination locally.
During the Pandemic the company had one Mental Health First Aider who was coping with a 60% increase in mental health conversations.
From a company perspective it was paramount that additional MHFAs were required to support the lone one.
Following a recruitment drive an additional eight MHFAs volunteered for the roles. All had training and now the nine MHFAs give support and guidance for a spectrum of levels covering employees, team leaders, Manager and Senior Leadership.
The team has a MHFA lead who offers a debrief service to any of the MHFAs who need it. As a team they talk about proactive methods of promoting mental health, ways of getting out to the employees to break down the stigmas of mental health.
Since the implementation back in 2017 the MHFAs team has spent time with more than 150 employees. The MHFAs do this role alongside their normal job.
They are the unsung heroes to many employees. They are committed to helping others.
So, what does being an MHFA mean to them? “For me, the opportunity to help others is a gift.” “It’s an honour and a privilege to be a MHFA, offering support to my colleagues when they need us most.” “Being a MHFA has helped me to cope with my own struggles. I have learnt to tell my own story and have found a way to build trust with others now, such that I am able to be the ear for their stories too.”
Wellbeing at Starbucks has always been high on the agenda, but through the creation of the Wellbeing Blend Partner (employee) network this has been elevated with the purpose of two key objectives:
Breaking the stigma on speaking about mental health, and ensuring that Starbucks partners know that there is a dedicated group for them, whose purpose/mission is powerful yet simple – “here for you everyday”.
The network focuses on three key pillars – mental, physical and financial wellbeing in terms of its structure and deliverables – but in terms of its day to day activities offers so much more. This award is made in nomination of the networks steer co who all, everyday, role model vulnerability, story telling empathy, and a non judgemental listening ear so to normalise conversations on mental health/wellbeing and to ensure that every partner we come in contact with know that asking for help isn’t giving up, but is REFUSING to give up.
Menopausal women are demographically, the fastest growing group of workers in the UK. Despite it being a natural life process for women, the menopause – and its impact is rarely discussed.
Menopals, the SBC Menopause group, was started in 2020 by just 4 employees each of whom were disillusioned not only by the lack of general menopause support in the workplace but also the disparity in knowledge from GPs on the subject of the Menopause.
The initial group, who now form the strategic committee for Menopals, are not based in Human Resources and operate on a voluntary basis alongside their normal day to day responsibilities providing regular colleague meetings, 1:1 support, speaker events and a wealth of online information and signposting. The group, which has been transformative in its approach to raising the profile of Menopause and Perimenopause in the council, has grown to over 70 colleagues, all experiencing similar challenges and wanting to be heard. “Feeling listened to and acknowledging the impact that the Menopause can and has had on work for many has been crucial and helped across the SBC organisation.
Making adequate provision and safe place for all women and raising awareness for those who maybe just starting the journey has been brilliant in our workplace”.
The MHFA Peer Support Network consists of over 60 staff across the business who have committed to becoming trained Mental Health First Aiders and providing an open, safe network for colleagues to come and talk to about their mental health and wellbeing.
Established in 2021 as an informal colleague to colleague support network, it has supported over 300 conversations, giving colleagues a non-judgmental, non-clinical contact that can help signpost them to our wider range of EAP support as well as a wealth of external providers and health services.
Our Peer network has been integral to feeding back and helping to develop wider HR and people policies, in particular through our conversation tracker that allows the network to record common themes or trends of conversation, areas of concern or information, how long has been spent on support conversations, when the conversations took place etc. This is then fed back into the business to help inform and address wider issues effecting both behavioural and cultural change.
Our log does not contain any personal or sensitive information ensuring everyone that the conversations we have are confidential and safe. Our Peer Network undertakes regular monthly supervision sessions to support each other, share best practice and information in order to ensure their mental health and wellbeing is also being looked after.
We have 2 national instructor trainers in-house who manage the Peer Network and are responsible for growing its capacity with a target of adding a further 50 colleagues to the network in 2023 whilst ensuring the network continues to represent the diverse nature of our workforce by training colleagues from a range of backgrounds, ethnicities, ages, genders and levels within business.
The Peer Support Network’s goal is to give everyone the opportunity to find someone they can talk to. We are incredibly proud of the impact this group has had on both the individual human level and in influencing organisation wider strategy and culture.
Unipart’s network of 200+ colleagues comprises of Wellbeing Champions & MHFA’s. They represent every site, grade and demographic. This network, through Unipart’s CI culture, are given a voice to evolve the Wellbeing programme.
Following 12 months working collaboratively across the Business divisions I am incredibly proud of everything they have achieved and continue to do. They have created a movement to make conversation commonplace, enabling colleagues to build connections and feel less alone. The groundwork around mental health and wellbeing is created at onboarding and features throughout a colleague’s journey.
This platform then helps the network to bring the support, education and events held to life. The difference can be seen and felt through:
– An increased visibility of mental health absence – 1700+ LMS modules on MH & resilience completed
– Our internal comms channel Spark is flooded with wellbeing engagement
– DIY health checks are actively requested & run by the Champions
– 40 wellbeing events held in 2023 so far – Over 300 MH conversations logged – Wellbeing cafes/spaces implemented by the Champions
– Period poverty initiatives – Policy development – i.e. Menopause, Cancer, Miscarriage & Carers
– An increase of 0.2 + on engagement in 2022 linked to the question ‘I feel cared for’ Storytelling is our key communication tool.
Members of this network have shared their own stories role modelling incredible bravery & vulnerability to inspire others to do the same, ranging from alcohol dependency, being a carer, to the impact of suicide. This network & their passion has without doubt been key to the mindset shift we have achieved.
Only the shortlisted nominees for Awards 1 and 2 were put to the “open / public” vote. Awards 3 to 10 were judged by our panel of experts. As we recognise not all networks are equal, in addition to the Voters’ winners, the Judges also selected winners of Awards 1 and 2.
Best provision of women’s health and wellbeing support
Best integration of workplace wellbeing & DEI
Best culture of psychological safety
Best support of financial wellbeing
Best line manager training to support workplace wellbeing
Best multinational implementation of a workplace wellbeing programme
Sector spotlight: Retail’s best implementation of workplace wellbeing
Sector spotlight: Construction’s best implementation of workplace wellbeing
Game-changing initiative of the year
The Award judges will be announced in Make A Difference News and the Awards opened for nominations
Nominations close
Shortlist of nominees announced and voting opens
Voting closes
The Award winners will be announced at The Watercooler Exhibition & Conference, ExCel, London. The Awards session is free to attend for nominees and employers.
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Mad World Summit 2023
12th October 2023
The Watercooler
23rd – 24th April 2024
EXCEL, London
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