You've got to accentuate the positive

The focus of some personnel management approaches tends to be on preventing the negative: limiting the number of days people take off sick or looking at what targets haven’t been hit, instead of encouraging the positive. In reality, to be truly effective, any wellbeing policy must go beyond just preventing absence and look towards enabling employees to be as effective and productive as possible. It's well known that there is strong link between physical and psychological wellbeing. This link has mutuality, in that a psychological problem has the risk of developing into an additional physical problem, and a physical problem has the risk of developing into an additional psychological problem.

As the increase in calls to our Employee Assistance Programme helplines shows, employees and managers alike are putting unreasonable pressure on themselves, to the point where this is becoming counter-productive. There has been a steep increase in the number of staff calling for help with mental health issues - up 70% from 2010 to 2012. 60% of all contact from employees concerned personal issues.

In 2008, the UK public services infrastructure provider Amey became the first organisation in its sector to introduce a formal ‘Wellbeing Programme.’ The aim of group HR director Valerie Hughes-D’Aeth was to encourage employees to take a proactive approach to looking after their health and wellbeing. This was backed up with an Employee Assistance Programme from Validium, with a free welfare helpline for all 12,000 employees and their families, with counselling, information and signposting and support to callers whenever they needed it, on a wide variety of issues from legal and financial help to childcare and relationship support. Amey has a diverse employee population in terms of the differing skills and workforce characteristics. Many of the employees are men who spend considerable time working outdoors without access to privacy or technology. Therefore the EAP service needed to be available 24 hours and employees encouraged to call the helpline and access all services outside traditional working hours. In addition, we discussed with Amey the barriers that often exist for men in relation to accessing health services and particularly mental health services, and we therefore designed bespoke presentations and marketing material that appealed to a male audience. Building resilience is an important element of Amey's wellbeing programme, and so the supporting EAP was geared to this, positioned as being an opportunity to strengthen, rather than purely a service to be used if there were problems.

A calendar of wellbeing initiatives and support was made available throughout the year. These initiatives included sports competitions, team building activities and health-awareness campaigns. Some of the current initiatives include wellbeing days, a cycle to work scheme, nutrition and health advice, relaxation and back care. For example, a recent Wellbeing Day included a wide range of advice and information as well as 15 minute appointments with a number of therapists: massage therapy; a back care clinic, exercise and posture realignment techniques as well as preventative measures; a health assessment and effective exercise consultation; a personal performance and healthy eating consultation; and a podiatry clinic.

Results from the Wellbeing Programme include 60% of attendees at smoking cessation events have since given up smoking and 61% of Wellbeing Day attendees said they had been encouraged to make positive lifestyle changes.

Amey uses HR measures and KPIs such as reduced sickness absence figures - most importantly for senior leaders - to track the value of the initiatives. Wellbeing is used as a key measure for staff satisfaction survey scores.

Wellbeing among employees underpins the performance of an organisation - but taking a role in encouraging people to lead healthier lives risks accusations of intrusion and being a corporate 'nanny'. Taking the right approach, however, brings major benefits to everyone involved. Here are insights from our experience working with Amey:

• Don't just think about reducing absence. Sickness is just one indicator, and any health and wellbeing programme needs to address the larger issues of happiness and engagement
• Embed wellbeing as part of your culture. Any programme shouldn't be a one-off, something seen as a token nod to healthy living
• Make it fun. Everyone is different and will have their own ideas about what's important for their personal health and what motivates them
• Help employees tackle the bigger issues. The root of problems with poor health and wellbeing are often nothing to do with physical illness
• A network of champions can help create 'grass roots' ownership, for sharing information and opportunities and for maintaining interest over the long-term

Mandy Rutter works for Employee Assistance Programme provider Validium.