Contact - Dr Lindsey Kilgour (lead), Dr Nic Matthews, Caroline Henley
Proof of Concept 8 (POC8) funding was awarded initially to the UoG Healthy Workplace Initiative (HWI) team to develop a Healthy Workplace Toolkit. The proposal set out the potential to design a HWP product that UoG could promote to local SMEs as an affordable but useful means of firstly identifying employee-based health issues and secondly developing tailored HWP practices for their business. The project was proposed at a time when government policy, in the recent past and currently, has sought to address health inequalities, promote healthy choices and make those choices the easy choices (DoH, 2004, 2005, 2010). The subsequent guidance, initiatives and social marketing campaigns instigated by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (i.e. NICE, 2008, 2009), the Health and Safety Executive (i.e. HSE, 2006), Sustrans (i.e. its 2008 information sheet Active Travel and Healthy Workplaces) and the British Heart Foundation (i.e. Health at Work, 2009) are indicative of the drive to support health promotion in the workplace. Employers wishing to provide a healthy workplace are required to recognise and address an array of issues: mental well-being, stress, health behaviours of staff, environmentally-friendly and sustainable work practices, absenteeism, planned returns to work etc. In each area there is a strong business case for promoting well-being with benefits including staff retention, reduced sickness leave and increases in productivity (NICE, 2009). Employers who choose to adopt a healthy workplace initiative will therefore need to demonstrate a commitment to identify, acknowledge and then address those health issues that most impact on their business. The benefits to employers, however, can only be accrued if initiatives are inclusive, recognising all employees should have equal opportunity to participate.