Defras healthy attitude towards its staff
Article Type: Rewards From: Strategic HR Review, Volume 8, Issue 1
Short case studies that demonstrate best practice in rewards
Christine MacFie, Andrew Kinder, Jennie BarnesChristine MacFie is corporate social responsibility and wellbeing manager at Defra, Andrew Kinder is an employee assistance programs service line manager and Jennie Barnes is a specialist nurse practitioner in occupational health, both at Atos Healthcare.
For some time now, the British government has been extolling the virtues of healthy living through a variety of initiatives and publicity campaigns. The reasons are not hard to fathom. A healthier population places less strain on the National Health Service and is more productive and less dependant on welfare payments. But these hard fact benefits are only part of a wider story that is seeing a government-led, fundamental shift in attitude towards health itself. It is no exaggeration to say that the question “What constitutes a healthy person?” – as open-ended as that sounds – is at the heart of this change in attitude.
That was the question to be addressed at the Department of the Environment,Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) in 2007, driven in part by the appointment of a new corporate social responsibility and wellbeing manager targeted with the task of transforming the approach to healthcare for a major British government department. The strategy was to take a holistic view of employee health and provide comprehensive occupational health and support services in order to promote wellbeing and position Defra as a leading representative of government health policy. Previously, the situation was that of poor managerial and staff awareness and therefore underutilization of available services through the contracted healthcare provider and no strategic framework that aligned good staff health and wellbeing at work with the achievement of organizational goals and performance.
Working with Atos Healthcare, Defra set out to identify all the work-related and personal concerns that constitute wellbeing, including such factors as the benefits to be derived from volunteer work. This was carried out by undertaking a review of major current research findings on health and wellbeing, both within the UK community generally and more specifically at work, including various HM government departments, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development(CIPD) and Business in the Community (BITC). From this research, an inclusive strategy was drawn up that was endorsed by senior management and agreed with the trade unions. Following are the key points that made up the new wellbeing and CSR program:
A wellbeing and health promotion strategy needs to include initiatives for employees of all ages and cultures, and at every level of an organization.
Wellbeing does not start and stop at work. Community projects demonstrate an organization’s willingness to promote health and social responsibility.
Easy access to, and wide publication of, appropriate services is the key to employee self-management.
Benchmarking against best-practice helps to maintain quality thresholds, and regular reporting of successes helps to ensure that a program has a long-term future.
Rolling out the new wellbeing program
Implementation was an exemplary challenge because Defra is determined to be a champion of wellbeing and corporate social responsibility – for its staff,as an example of public sector attitudes and practice, and on behalf of wider government policy, i.e. to “practice what it preaches.” To be successful on such a broad front, health initiatives needed to encompass a wide range of issues, life-stages and lifestyles, from general health education for men and women in urban and rural locations to events, seminars and lunchtime talks focusing on numerous topics, such as back pain, stopping smoking, stress strategies and domestic violence. A wide range of initiatives and events were introduced in Autumn 2007.
Each event presented the opportunity to get across a combined message of preventative action and the availability of professional healthcare and employee support, all in the context of a long-term health program also designed to aid recruitment and retention and make Defra an employer of first-choice.
A pilot program of health promotion and health screening was set up at Defra sites in London, Worcester, Stafford, Surrey and York, attended by over 600 employees, as part of an overall Defra “Fit for Life” scheme. Its success led to a rolling program of screening events. Joint Defra and Atos Healthcare meetings with senior management were held to promote a better understanding of the healthcare services available and how staff and Defra itself could benefit from them. A series of events were organized to coincide with World Mental Health Day in October 2007 for managers and staff, featuring independent speakers from respected bodies such as the mental health charity,SANE.
Individual and corporate health
In order to ensure the widest possible promotion, initiatives and events are electronically publicized in Defra’s weekly “Office Notices”– an intranet-based staff information service – with links to local coordinators who are responsible for taking bookings and arranging for staff to attend a given event. Not only does this provide a local basis for assessing interest in particular promotions, it also allows events to be demand driven. If the numbers warrant it, additional sessions or days can be added to make sure that everyone who wants to attend has the opportunity to do so. This flexibility is a very important aspect of Defra’s and Atos Healthcare’s determination to create a wellbeing program that brings together all employees in a common purpose – looking after their own health while also making Defra healthier as an organization.
Parallel with these initiatives a new Internet site hosted by Atos Healthcare was created to deliver information and fact sheets about healthcare services. For example, the internet provides a confidential stress analysis questionnaire that staff complete and then receive from Atos Healthcare a personal report outlining how they can increase their coping resources.
Activity is also targeted towards minimizing sickness absence. Managers are trained to recognize potential sickness absence signs and a management referral process is in place to make sure that employees are given work-related occupational health support. The aim is to return an employee to work at the earliest opportunity, through a structured recuperative program wherever necessary.
Taking a far-sighted approach to CSR
The corporate social responsibility (CSR) elements of the program deliver an interesting response to the question posed earlier: “What is a healthy person?” Staff are encouraged to engage in volunteer work at all levels,both individually and in teams. They are entitled to one day’s paid special leave for volunteering purposes and the work being done by staff is both imaginative and forward looking. For example, from September 2008, in a pilot program called “Defra Schools Ambassadors,” Defra volunteers will be trained to work alongside teachers and with a range of young people to help them discover new, exciting and practical ways of reducing their school’s carbon footprint. The project will then be evaluated prior to the program being rolled out across Defra’s organizational network. Defra is also investigating the feasibility of setting up a payroll giving scheme that supports charitable organizations, including the possibility of staff offsetting their carbon emissions through payroll giving.
Support for working parents and carers and the survivors of domestic violence as well as work with “hard to reach” community groups, through both active involvement and by working with third-sector organizations, are all part of the innovative and far-sighted CSR agenda. These initiatives assume that a sense of wellbeing is founded on satisfying all sorts of social needs, from the locus of the family to making a positive contribution to society itself. In effect, they are elements of a virtuous circle in which personal support offered by Defra and “making a difference” feed back into positive wellbeing at work. When the CSR program is allied to health promotion, sickness rehabilitation and employee assistance/counseling services that address life issues, the result is a powerful demonstration of what can be achieved by taking a holistic view of both the “whole person” and Defra’s responsibilities as an employer and a forward-looking government department.
The work continues
Defra now has a continuous health promotion, advice and support program, with event listings posted months in advance. The CSR and wellbeing team is in almost daily contact with Atos Healthcare colleagues, creating and managing the program. For such a large, countrywide organization a close working relationship is key to sustainability. Atos Healthcare provides a network of healthcare professionals and advisers across the UK who take personal responsibility for services and geographic areas as well as responding to unique requirements.
It is essential to benchmark, monitor and evaluate the numerous schemes and initiatives that make up the wellbeing services and CSR framework to ensure that current and planned initiatives fit in with, and support, Defra’s priorities in achieving its aims and strategic objectives. Atos Healthcare provides regular management information relating to occupational health and the employee assistance/counseling service. From January 2009, an annual report summarizing wellbeing services and CSR activities and key achievements,supported by appropriate monitoring and evaluation data, will enable Defra’s management board and a wide variety of other key stakeholders to track progress and to celebrate successes during the year. For now the team at Defra is enthusiastic about the program and sees early indicators of success, such as well over 200 staff attending volunteering fairs held in London and York in recent months and talking to a wide range of environmental and community charity exhibitors.
About the authors
Christine MacFie, PhD, is corporate social responsibility and wellbeing manager at Defra. Before joining Defra in 2007 MacFie set up and led an in-house occupational health, safety and welfare team in Sussex Police. Following a national police award she completed doctoral research into psychological trauma management in the UK police service. She can be contacted at: christine.macfie@defra.gsi.gov.uk
Andrew Kinder is employee assistance programs (EAP) service line manager for Atos Healthcare with responsibility for designing and running all employee support/counseling programs for clients across the public and private sectors. He is also a chartered psychologist and chair emeritus of the Association for Counseling at Work.
Jennie Barnes is a specialist nurse practitioner in occupational health for Atos Healthcare. She is responsible for providing clinical services to employees in both public and private sector organizations. She also supports clients in the development of new services to help reduce sickness absence and improve wellbeing.
About Defra
Defra employs over 10,000 staff within its core department and agencies who carry out government policy for agriculture, horticulture and fisheries in England, as well as policy for a wide range of trade and food issues across the whole of the UK. These responsibilities cover the land and other resources used in food production, the industries that produce and supply food, and the safety and quality of the final product. The Atos Healthcare contract for occupational health and staff support covers the core department and some of the agencies,circa 5,000 staff in total.
