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Thursday 14 September 2017

 

Britain’s Healthiest Workplace winners announced for 2017


The 2017 Britain’s Healthiest Workplace winners have been revealed and the awards have recognised Nomura International Plc as the healthiest large workplace, adidas the healthiest medium workplace and Forster Communications the healthiest small workplace. The winners were chosen from 167 participating organisations with 32,000 participating individual employees.

Britain’s Healthiest Workplace is one of the largest employee health and wellbeing surveys in the UK. It studies the link between employee health and lifestyle choices, the work environment, and business critical outcomes such as productivity and engagement. 

The study was developed by VitalityHealth and is delivered in partnership with the University of Cambridge, RAND Europe, the Financial Times and Mercer. Now in its fifth year, Britain’s Healthiest Workplace has surveyed nearly 370 employers and more than 124,000 employees, providing an extensive dataset on which to research organisational performance and a mechanism to celebrate employers with an outstanding approach to employee health and wellbeing. 

To identify those organisations with the most effective workplace wellness strategies, Britain’s Healthiest Workplace assesses both the underlying health of the workforce, as well as the efforts made by the employer to improve the health of its workers. Nine awards were presented in 2017, which were the overall Britain’s Healthiest Workplace Award for the best performers across small, medium and large organisations; the Most Improved Award, presented to repeat participants that most improved their performance year on year; and the Healthiest New Entrant award, considered across organisations that participated in the survey for the first time in 2017. 

The winning organisations, which were recognised during a ceremony in London, are as follows:

  Large
(1,000+ employees) 
Medium
(250-999 employees)
Small
(20-249
employees)
Britain’s Healthiest Workplace Award  Nomura
International Plc
adidas  Forster Communications
Most Improved Award  ASCO UK Limited Neovia Logistics  First Advantage Europe Limited
Healthiest New Entrant  NATS Skyscanner  Health Innovation Network

Highly commended organisations in each category are as follows:

Britain’s Healthiest Workplace (large companies) 
Johnson & Johnson
Arqiva
Britain’s Healthiest Workplace (medium companies) 
Sweaty Betty
Gilead Sciences
Britain’s Healthiest Workplace (small companies) 
Ruffer LLP
Health Innovation Network
Most Improved Workplace (large) 
Dixons Carphone
Skanska UK plc
Most Improved Workplace (medium) 
MB Aerospace Holdings Limited
Fareham College
Most Improved Workplace (small) 
Academy Music Group
DNOW UK Ltd
Healthiest New Entrant (large) 
Pinsent Masons LLP
Belfast Health and Social Care Trust
Healthiest New Entrant (medium) 
Thames Tideway
Sika Ltd & Everbuild Building Projects Ltd
Healthiest New Entrant (small) 
Slalom Consulting
MHFA England CIC

Neville Koopowitz, CEO at Vitality, said: “Britain’s Healthiest Workplace offers a unique insight into the role employers can play in influencing employee health and wellbeing. 

“A key finding has been that while the challenge of health-related productivity loss is pervasive to organisations of all industries and sizes, it is in fact modifiable, and employers can reduce this through investing in employee health and wellbeing. However, in order to be effective, workplace health and wellbeing strategies must be embedded in the fabric of the organisation, be accessible and well-promoted, supported by senior leadership, and, importantly, offer employees tangible incentives to participate. 

“It is time for corporate Britain to elevate the discussion around employee health onto the Board agenda, and to place the health of its employees – an organisation’s greatest asset – on its risk register.”

 “With widespread generic health risks impacting large swathes of the population, including concerning levels of alcohol consumption, poor diet, lack of exercise and the resulting obesity, many employers think that these risk factors sit outside of their control,” said Chris Bailey, Partner in Mercer’s Health business. “However, we see sector specific mental and physical health risks impacting particularly younger, lower paid employees as they cope with the demands society places upon them through financial and work pressures, and the impact of  being part of an always on social media generation.” 

“Employers of all sizes can and do positively impact on the health of their people, through initiatives such as line manager training to spot the early signs of mental ill-heath. This creates a virtuous circle, improving individual lives, actively managing lost working time, and increasing productivity. The survey shows us that organisations in London and the South East, particularly those in professional and financial services, are reaping the rewards of investing in the health of their people.”

ENDS

Notes to editors:

The Britain's Healthiest Workplace research process took place between February and August 2017. It looked at a number of lifestyle, mental wellbeing, clinical risk and productivity factors amongst 31,950 employees, together with a broad view of leadership and cultural dimensions and organisational policies, practices and facilities that could directly impact on employee health, across 167 companies. Results based on UK workforce as reported by each company surveyed. Large organisations – 1000+ eligible employees, medium organisations – 250-999 eligible employees, small organisations - 20-249 eligible employees.