Recognising health and wellbeing across array of workplaces

Construction firm L&M Keating and the Central Bank of Ireland were among six organisations to be recognised as best in class for workplace wellbeing at the inaugural Ibec KeepWell Awards earlier this month. The awards acknowledged those companies who are prioritising workplace wellbeing and showcased those who have achieved exceptional success with their corporate wellness strategies.

The KeepWell Mark is a workplace wellbeing accreditation from Ibec which helps companies demonstrate their organisation’s commitment to improving the lives of those who work for them.

Twenty-five companies accredited to the KeepWell Mark were shortlisted for the awards. Along with the Central Bank and L&M Keating, the winners were Microsoft Ireland, the Health Products Regulatory Authority, University College Cork and Sky Ireland.

Safety

L&M Keating is the first construction company to be accredited to the standard. "We have always recognised that our people are our strength as an organisation," says head of health, safety and wellbeing Ian Lynch. "We made a strong commitment to improving our workplace wellbeing practices across all levels of the business. The key to our success has been ensuring that our employee wellbeing programme is employee-led with the full support of senior management.

“Our programme provides an opportunity for employees to improve their wellbeing and health during their working day but also focuses on healthy lifestyle and family activities to ensure a greater work-life balance.”

The KeepWell accreditation helped the company put the programme on a more structured footing. “It helped us pull things together,” says Lynch. “I can’t speak highly enough of the Ibec KeepWell team. They made the process so simple. I would absolutely encourage other companies to engage with them.”

The Keating programme is built on three pillars which were identified in a staff survey: mental health, healthy eating and physical activity. The physical activity element includes a range of events such as lunchtime runs, jive dancing classes, park runs for employees and their families at weekends,

Communication is the key to the mental health programme. “You have to get people to talk,” says Lynch.

The company introduced a novel “safe word” system for staff to indicate that they would like to talk to a colleague about an issue. “The safe word is tea and a biscuit. If you offer a tea and a biscuit it means you want to talk. It has worked very well. Most of the time the problem can be very simple and just saying it out loud can help resolve it.”

Healthy options have been introduced to the canteen and employees were given recipes for healthy packed lunches under the nutrition element. “It’s about making the healthy choice the easy choice,” says Lynch.

The Central Bank of Ireland achieved the KeepWell accreditation in November of last year having first learned of the programme in early 2018. The organisation had already been engaged in a workplace wellbeing programme long before that.

Vitality room

"Our health and wellbeing programmes have gone from strength to strength in recent years," says Sinead Howley, HR wellness and engagement specialist with the Central Bank. "The KeepWell allowed us focus on eight categories in a structured way. It allowed us benchmark our activities and, most importantly, allowed us look at ways to continue to improve."

She explains that the organisation’s new North Wall Quay headquarters has been designed with employee health and wellbeing in mind. For example, the dedicated wellness centre includes a vitality room for yoga, Pilates, cardio and other classes; a strength room featuring pieces of gym equipment; a medical room for health screening, vaccination programmes and so on; a recovery room where people can go when they are feeling unwell; and a serenity room where people can go to meditate, listen to their Headspace app or just sit in silence.

“We encourage people to walk, run or cycle to work,” Howley adds. “And we have end of journey facilities like showers and a drying room to support that.”

There is a significant focus and mental health and wellbeing. “We put mental health at the forefront of what we do back in 2017,” she says. “According to WHO statistics, one in four people will encounter mental health difficulties at some stage in their life and the Central Bank wanted to take a proactive approach to the issue.”

That approach has seen the Central Bank partner with mental health advocacy organisation See Change on a number of initiatives aimed at creating a workplace where there is no stigma in relation to mental health issues and people feel comfortable talking about their problems.

“It’s great to be recognised for our work, particularly in relation to mental health,” says Howley. “The challenge for us is to build on the work we have done so far and continue to provide a comprehensive programme of supports for our employees’ health and wellbeing at work and in their personal lives. It is a journey that will continue.”