Category: Wellbeing

Q. What is an Employee Assistance Program and why is it a good idea?

We’ve been told it would be a good idea to introduce an Employee Assistance Program, but we don’t even really know what it is – help?! An Employee Assistance Programme or EAP as they are often referred to, are there to help employees by providing support for any mental or financial problems employees might have.  EAPs help employers to provide: Short-term counselling Referral services Health & wellbeing programmes such as guided meditation Incentives or financial rewards & discounts. EAPs help employees deal with personal problems that might negatively impact their…
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Mental Health in the workplace
Culture and change
Emma Browning

Low cost ways to develop a culture of employee wellbeing

Did you know that 700 construction workers take their own lives every year in the UK? That’s a minimum of two lives lost, every single day, which is a really scary and awful statistic. Unfortunately, I’ve had to deal with two suicides in my 24 year HR career, both of whom were male, which is two suicides too many, and let me tell you, it’s the worst thing I have ever had to deal with – ever. It’s a grim reality to remind us of the profound impact of mental…
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Employee Engagement Survey
Culture and change
Emma Browning

The power of Employee Engagement Surveys

This is one of the most powerful tools you can use as a business leader.   As a business leader, one of your jobs is to make big difficult decisions.  When making a decision as a business leader, you take care to look at all of the information you have available to you so that you can make the best, most informed, decisions. And when it comes to making decisions about your people, it’s important to use the same due care and diligence, because your people are your greatest business…
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Development
laurence

Strategies To Combat The Winter Blues

As the days get shorter and darker and nights get longer and more drawn out, have you noticed a dip in productivity? If so, you’re not alone. A study in the Harvard Business Review found that January is the least productive time of the year. 41% of those surveyed say their mental health gets worse during the holidays, and one in five seek professional support for managing their mental health. The report says it’s partly a symptom of how energy levels, mood and wider mental health deteriorates in the winter…
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Culture and change
elinabyrne

Do you know how many days have been lost in your business due to employee wellbeing?

You may not know the exact figure in your own business, but absence is on the increase and the predominant reason for people’s absence is now wellbeing whereas in the past, the biggest reason for absence was Muscular Skeletal issues such as bad backs/hand and wrist injuries – linked to poor posture, PC/Laptop and mouse usage. A staggering 185.6 million working days were lost to stress related illnesses in 2022, which is a new record according to the Office for National Statistics, and the increase from 2021 to 2022 is…
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Culture and change
elinabyrne

How can you support your employees in challenging economic times?

Every day we speak to clients that are trying to decide what they can do to attract and retain staff in the current economic crisis. With their employees feeling the financial pinch, the increases in the minimum wage announced, the huge real living wage hike in October last year plus the cost of fuel and food increasing regularly, most organisations are trying to find a way forward that is sustainable but will also help their staff. With a rising cost of living and energy bills, households are strained beyond their…
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Culture and change
elinabyrne

Never mind e=mc2. Employee Wellbeing2=profits10

What do we actually mean by employee wellbeing? To this day, wellbeing remains a contested word, with various definitions and spellings and still remains “conceptually muddy”.  What I can assure you though – it definitely isn’t ‘wellness’. “Workplace wellness” is usually linked with the word “health” and unsurprisingly the focus is mostly on employee physical health such as being at a healthy weight, looking at your nutrition, exercise, and stopping smoking etc.  All extremely worthwhile and creditable for sure, but they alone, will not drive increased employee engagement or add…
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Policies and procedures
Emma Browning

Must employers provide equipment for employees who work from home?

While there is no specific duty on employers to provide equipment for employees working from home, they should ensure that employees have everything they need to be able to work safely and effectively. Where the employer requires employees to work from home, it should provide the equipment or agree to reimburse employees for the cost of suitable equipment. Where the employer allows, rather than requires, an employee to work from home for some of the time (for example under a discretionary hybrid working arrangement), it should agree with them who…
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Policies and procedures
Emma Browning

Q: Are employers required to provide a prayer room for staff?

Employers are not specifically required to provide a prayer room. However, if a quiet place is available, and allowing its use for prayer would not cause problems for other workers or for the business, the employer should agree to it being used for the purposes of religious observance. Where an employee’s religion requires observance of particular prayer times during the working day, this should be respected wherever possible. Willingness to accommodate the religious needs of employees is likely to be in the employer’s interests, as it will help maintain the…
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Employment law
Emma Browning

Top 5 HR Questions for May

1.Should we fight or settle a claim against us? The cost to employers of defending an employment tribunal claim was highlighted when Times Higher Education reported that a university had spent more than £200,000 defending an unfair dismissal claim that could, it said, have been settled for much less. The case in question was Quigley v University of St Andrews EATS/0025/05 – a constructive dismissal claim that went as far as the Employment Appeal Tribunal. The case raises the question for employers: is it better to settle or to fight?…
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