Heathy Working Lives is a free health and safety advice service in Scotland and is part of NHS Health Scotland.
They provide an award programme to “help you identify issues and improve health, safety and wellbeing in your organisation in a structured and productive way”. The support offered claims to help you to develop clear and robust policies and practices, show you have high standards of health, safety and wellbeing and finds ways for you to be socially responsible.
According to Healthy Working Lives, the approach is strongly supported by the Scottish Government and proven to improve employee morale and retention as well as productivity. https://www.healthyworkinglives.scot
What do I think?
Firstly, it mentions “proven to improve employee morale and retention” but I can’t find any statistical data or mention of any organisation where this is the case on the website, perhaps this is provided when you sign up. Being widely supported by the government doesn’t fill me with huge enthusiasm either given public sector employee statistics on mental health are the worst in the UK. (source:hse.gov.uk)
Secondly, it doesn’t clearly point out in the award ‘blurb’ that legally, an organisation is obliged to have policies and procedures in place for health & safety and is recommended by the Health and Safety Executive to have a stress risk assessment in place. Organisations should be doing this as a matter of course not to gain recognition for doing so.
That’s my initial criticism and it doesn’t stop there. At gold level there is a check list which includes things like 3 x health, safety and wellbeing information campaigns, 2 x opportunities in healthy eating, you get the idea. I really dislike checklists when it comes to any health & wellbeing strategy or policy as it promotes apathy and a lack of concern for what issues actually exist.
There is also no mention of leadership needing to demonstrate and role model appropriate culture and behaviours, one of Mind & Mission’s primary objectives. It is also unclear as to how achieving the award allows an organisation to track ROI and benefits (given they say it’s proven).
Are there any positives?
Well, yes actually there are some nuggets in there too. An assessor might(!) ask about employee involvement in the development and implementation of the strategy and action plan. It does however, go without saying that any plan that doesn’t involve employees is a non-starter. It does actually mention benchmarking, but doesn’t give much detail. There is also some excellent guidance on health inequalities that I’ve only seen on MHFA courses so worth a read of that.
In summary
Do I think you should sign up for the HWL gold award? I can’t honestly tell you it’s a terrible option as it focuses on action. I would say however, if as an organisation you are focussed on ticking boxes, filling in forms and meeting criteria purely for recognition, you are not focussed on meeting the needs of your employees. In my opinion wellbeing is about leaders assessing the actual risks & issues and tailoring measures to respond appropriately.
There is some excellent guidance and I can’t disagree that strategies, policies and procedure are key. At the risk of repeating myself, it must start with leadership engagement, actual buy-in, belief in the outcome and motivation for change; not recognition. That comes later when mental illness is no longer stigmatised and mental health is as common a discussion as physical health.
What’s the alternative?
Obviously, a firm like ours can support you to get everything in place top to bottom and end to end for your unique organisation. You must, however balance the needs of your organisation, your needs as a leader, the needs of your people, the resources you have and the knowledge you have on the subject matter.
Thanks for reading
Kirsty
Note – this article contains personal views and is not the opinion of Mind & Mission Ltd
