Did you know that a happy healthy workforce is more productive, takes fewer sick days and can help to reduce costs?

• 1 in 6 adults will have experienced a common mental health disorder in the past week (Health matters: health and work, 2019) and on average for every £1 spent on mental health support in the workplace, there is an average of £5 return on investment. (Deliotte 2022)
• The estimated total cost of absenteeism, presenteeism and staff turnover has increased by 25% since 2019, reaching an estimated annual cost of £53-56 billion between 2020-2021. (Deliotte 2022)
• Glassdoor found that more than half of adults would consider a company’s culture to be more important than salary.
• Recent CIPD research found that in order to tackle the skills shortage, organisations need to highlight other components of good working practices when recruiting, such as offering flexible working and promoting career development opportunities.
• Effective workplace health interventions can return £2-£34 for every £1 spent. (ERS Research and Consultancy. Health at work: Economic Evidence Report 2016)
• The RAND Corporation 2018 Review found the adoption of workplace accreditation standards contributed to: “Improvements in policies, infrastructure and the provision of wellbeing programmes by participating organisations, such as sickness absence, job satisfaction and staff morale”

What can you do to support the health and wellbeing of your employees over the winter months?

1. Register for the Healthy Workplace Standards, a best practice framework to help you to implement improvements in health and wellbeing at work. The Public Health Workplace Health Team will support you to achieve your health and wellbeing goals within a timeframe lead by you.
2. Connect with local health and wellbeing service providers offering a wide range of free health and wellbeing services to all workplaces.
3. Visit the Healthy Workplace webpages for a wide range of resources and services to support employee health and wellbeing, from financial wellbeing to loneliness and sleep.
4. Adhere to Government and Health and Safety Executive guidance on the prevention of transmission of respiratory infections such as COVID-19, including adequately ventilating your workplace. For further advice on protecting employee health from colds and flu please visit Healthy workplace news | Milton Keynes City Council (milton-keynes.gov.uk)
5. Encourage your employees to get vaccinated against flu and COVID-19. They can contact their GP or Pharmacy to check eligibility and or access the right one for them. More information can be found here - Flu - Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes Integrated Care System (blmkhealthandcarepartnership.org).
6. Follow the recommendations of the behavioural insight research study which found that employees respond best to messages in the workplace when:

• Preventive measured are led by example from the top
• An enabling environment for adhering to measures is provided
• Preventive information is provided

The Public Health Workplace Health Team would like to hear from you  public.health@milton- keynes.gov.uk