Employee wellbeing and health Adding value in challenging times

Agenda Context and challenges The project Top tips for adding value/influencing senior managers - Positioning and language - Making the business case - Showing financial return - Focusing on health risks areas - Developing a collaborative approach - Aligning with the government agenda Discussion

Context and challenges

Context Reduced funding Major change (restructures, redundancies or growth/quality drive) Increased fees/student expectations Competitive global market

The challenge How can you create an environment where your team can: stay healthy and remain in work cope (and thrive) during change perform to the best of their abilities deliver excellent ‘customer’ service remain motivated, engaged and committed to their work/the institution?

The project

The project (Oct 2008-11) HEFCE, HEFCW and SFC funded Led by Universities of Leeds in partnership with Universities of Aberdeen, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Chester, Glasgow, Heriot Watt, Newcastle, Queen Mary and Winchester and Grimsby Institute Key aims: - Improve wellbeing and engagement practice - Increase ‘buy in’ at senior levels - Create opportunities for learning and sharing - Begin to develop the evidence base

Key stands Wellbeing and performance mapping Interventions (piloting and evaluation) Communications, events, toolkits and case studies (www.wellbeing.ac.uk)

Getting involved Website (www.wellbeing.ac.uk) – guidance and case studies launched September - free until end of September E-newsletter – back issues available online Final conference (9th September) – only 50 places left Final reports - to be launched at the conference Join the Phase 3 consortium (October 2011 onwards)

Top tips for adding value and influencing senior managers

Positioning and language Use language that appeals to senior managers (not necessarily focusing on the words health and wellbeing) – engagement, discretionary effort, performance, resilience Align with strategic priorities to show a direct link to core business eg. student satisfaction, performance management (not a nice to have activity!) Move away from the perception that health related activities are just staff benefits Move away from being seen as initiative/campaign driven – to embed in core activity

Recruitment and retention The average cost per person who leaves an employer is £7750 (CIPD, 2007) The average staff turn-over in HE is 8.4% 33% of organisations reported an average reduction in staff turn-over of 20-25% (Dame Carol Black Review, 2008) Employer of choice/reputation

Sickness absence It is estimated that ‘unhealthy’ employees take on average 9 days more sick leave (Medibank, 2005) 80% of organisations reported a 30-40% reduction in days lost through sickness absence (Dame Carol Black Report, 2008)

Sickness absence Sickness absence costs approx. £692 per person, per year, therefore, £4,152,000 to a university such as Sheffield (CIPD, 2009) Centre for Mental Health, 2007) Efforts to increase employee physical activity at the University of Bolton led to a reduction in absence from 11.69 days per person, per year, to 8.38 days. Grimsby Institute for Further and Higher Education – absence reduction from 3.6% per year in 2004/5 to 1.18% per year in 2007/8, and no. of staff with no sickness absence increase from 26% to 46%.

The student experience 70% of engaged employees indicated they have a good understanding of how to meet customer needs, while only 17% of non- engaged employees said the same (Civil Service, McLeod Review, 2009) 78%of highly engaged workers said they can make an impact on public service delivery and customer sevice, versus only 29% of disengaged employees (Civil Service, McLeod Review, 2009). NHS – Boorman Review – clear links to patient outcomes (Boorman, 2009) Project outcomes – see results September 2011.

Engagement and performance Presenteeism costs approx. £600 per employee, per year, therefore, £2,400,000 per year to a university such as Aberdeen (Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health, 2007) If a 10% increase in performance is worth a minimum of 5% of salary (£1,606 per employee), the potential saving to a university such Portsmouth is £4,818,000 per year (Robertson Cooper Ltd, 2008). Average cost of tribual cases, to an organisation, is £20,000 per year (CIPD, 2008).

Showing financial return Evaluate all activities Not just participation/ ‘happy sheets’ See www.wellbeing.ac.uk from September for more guidance Show alignment with what staff really want and the organisation really needs Can you include a question in the (annual) staff survey?

Focusing on health risk areas Musculoskeletal Stress/mental health - Potentially targeting areas going through major change - Link to HSE compliance Other high risk groups Focus on the things that lead to long term sickness absence

A collaborative approach Multi-disciplinary approach - Avoid duplication - Create a joined-up agenda Prescription for exercise (Occupational Health)? Linking in with catering services? Involve academics and students Learn from/work with other organisations (inside and outside the sector) - Avoid reinventing the wheel - Shared services

The government agenda Public Health Responsibility Deal (Dame Carol Black, DWP) - Sign up to the pledges Sickness absence review (Dame Carol Black, DWP) Engagement review (David MacLeod, BIS) HSE – stress management Key note speech and workshop on government health and wellbeing agenda at the conference

Useful resources Improving performance through wellbeing website (www.wellbeing.ac.uk) Good Work Commission (www.goodworkcommission.co.uk) Work Foundation (www.theworkfoundation.com) Business in the Community (www.bitc.org.uk) Centre for Mental Health (www.centreformentalhealth.org.uk) CIPD (www.cipd.co.uk) DWP (Dame Carol Black) (www.workingforhealth.gov.uk) Note a full list of resources is available at www.wellbeing.ac.uk

Discussion

What can you do to enhance the health and wellbeing of staff on a tight budget?

Contact information… Kim Shutler-Jones 0113 343 6525 k.shutler-jones@leeds.ac.uk