Northumbrian Water has won a prestigious accolade after introducing an holistic wellbeing initiative that helped to cut its sickness absence rates by 3.1% between 2010 and 2011.
The provider of water and sewage services to customers in the North East of England received charity Business in the Community’s Workwell Award last night after seeing absence rates among its workforce due to musculoskeletal disorders and stress drop by 40% and 13% respectively.
Heidi Mottram, the firm’s chief executive, said: “Our company performance is directly dependent on our people and so helping to prevent, rather than just cure, their health problems is at the heart of our health and well-being strategy.”
A third of Northumbrian Water’s employees are over 50 and 70% are male, but their high sickness absence rates had been generating direct costs for the business of more than £1 million per annum.
As a result, the decision was taken to introduce a so-called ‘RehabWorks’ scheme in April 2008 to provide workers complaining of musculoskeletal problems with early access to specialist advice from chartered physiotherapists for diagnosis and treatment purposes.
‘NWLsupport’ was subsequently implemented two years later to provide staff with confidential counselling services and support in managing their lives more effectively.
Occupational health nurses initially offer staff telephone-based triage to assess their situation and recommend appropriate treatment. But each employee is entitled to five sessions of face-to-face counselling within seven working days from a professional based within 20 minutes of either their home or office site.
Support is also made available from the HR team to both the worker concerned and their line manager in order to help them handle delicate situations with sensitivity.
Other prize winners included WM Morrison’s Supermarkets, which received the Workplace Talent and Skills Award for its commitment to training and developing 100,000 of its staff last year and demonstrating a 95% internal promotion ratio in the case of store managers.
Guests at the awards ceremony were joined by Olympian, Dame Kelly Holmes, and Paralympian, Liz Johnson. The event held at London’s Old Billingsgate Market, was hosted by Suggs from the band, Madness, and BBC journalist, Mishal Husain.
