VinciWorks’ mental health and wellbeing course has been selected for this year’s EG Tech Awards for the category of Wellbeing Technology of the Year. Bringing together tech businesses and established players in real estate, these awards reward innovation and delivery among both groups. This is the second award our mental health course has been shortlisted for, after we were shortlisted for the InsideOut award for Best Use of Technology in January. The winner of that award will now be announced in September.
Continue readingCategory Archives: Health and safety
On-demand webinar: Health and safety and Covid-19 — Getting back to work safely
The UK government has begun to encourage businesses in certain industries to return to work where possible. While many professional services firms and other primarily office-based businesses are still working from home, it is important to understand the steps that need to be taken as and when it is safe to return to the office.
In our short on-demand webinar, our Director of Learning and Content Nick Henderson gives guidance on how staff can keep themselves and their colleagues safe in the office.
Continue readingIntegrate your health and safety training with our centralised reporting tool
How do you make online health and safety training an experience that actually makes a difference in real time? How can you easily gather data on your staff’s workstation as well as physical and mental health, especially if they are working from home?
As part of our health and safety course, which has been adapted for home workers, users undertake a number of assessments related to their workstation setup. These immersive assessments can be integrated with our reporting tool, Omnitrack. Administrators can then collect rich, actionable data from their users while they complete these assessments. With so many employees currently working remotely, our tool will help businesses ensure all their staff have a comfortable and healthy space to work from home.
Continue readingNew course release – Health and Safety: Working at Home
VinciWorks’ new course, Health and Safety: Working at Home, is specifically designed for people who need to know about health and safety while working from home. The course delivers short, interactive health and safety training units which are designed to make sure staff are conscious of safety concerns while they are working from home.
Based on VinciWorks’ health and safety training, the course focuses on aspects of health and safety that are pertinent to a home office, particularly ergonomics and proper use of display screen equipment (DSE).
Even if employees are working from home, employers still have a duty of care and are bound by the health and safety training requirements.
Course units
- Basic ergonomics
- Display Screen Equipment
- Basic electrical safety
- Basic first aid
On-demand webinar: Mental Health: Wellbeing at Work
There has been increasing public awareness, political concern, and corporate action on mental health in the UK in recent years. This comes amid more referrals to mental health services, an explosion in prescriptions for anti-depressants, an increase in work days lost to mental health problems, and a stark rise in suicide, particularly among young men. In light of the current COVID-19 pandemic, stress and anxiety will only be exacerbated.
In this webinar, we explored employers’ moral and legal responsibility towards their staff’s wellbeing. We were also joined by DAC Beachcroft’s Head of Employee Relations Ben Morris and Pinsent Masons LLP’s Diversity and Inclusion Consultant Kate Dodd to explore initiatives that businesses have introduced to good effect and what lessons have been learnt.
Continue readingMental health and younger workers: It’s time to prioritise
‘It’s not 1 in 4, it’s all of us.’
This is the title of a major joint Accenture and This Can Happen report on supporting the mental health of younger workers. And the results are staggering.
By the time they are 30 years old, 95% of workers in the UK will have been touched by a mental health challenge, either their own or that of someone they know.
The duty to care: Employers’ mental health obligations
Work-related stress and mental health problems often go together, and the symptoms can be very similar.
Work-related stress can aggravate an existing mental health problem, making it more difficult to control. If work-related stress reaches a point where it has triggered an existing mental health problem, it becomes hard to separate one from the other.
Under health and safety at work legislation, employers have a duty of care to their staff. This duty of care encompasses having staff take a stress and mental health risk assessment and then acting on it. This means they should take all steps which are reasonably possible to ensure their health, safety, and wellbeing. Legally, employers must abide by the relevant health and safety and employment law, as well as their common law duty of care.
What is mental health awareness training?
Shifting the conversation on mental health and employee wellbeing
Many businesses want to do training on mental health, to make it part of the induction process or roll it out to tens of thousands of employees in multiple sites. But the problem is that the vast majority of mental health training solutions require onsite, day-long, classroom-based external sessions—a significant time and cost investment that often only the largest or most progressive companies can afford.
The growth of mental health first aiders has of course greatly expanded the numbers of workers who have contact with a trained professional, but this still does not solve the problem of how to get everyone in a company to understand the key issues and aspects of mental health.
Continue readingWhy should businesses take action on mental health? Download the guide
Around one in four adults in the UK experience mental health issues. These problems can often be exacerbated by work. The problem is that the vast majority of mental health training solutions require onsite, day-long, classroom-based external sessions that require a significant time and cost investment. Only the largest or most progressive companies can afford this form of training.
Convincing leadership to include company-wide mental health training in their budget and that effective training doesn’t need to come at a huge cost has proven to be a real challenge. VinciWorks has created a short guide to help present a business case for mental health training and get board buy-in.
The guide covers:
- Some of the difficulties in getting board-level buy-in for action on mental health
- Shocking statistics surrounding wellbeing at work
- Guidance on how to get buy-in for mental health training
- Business’ legal requirement to provide mental health training
How to improve wellbeing at work
With new research showing that poor mental health costs UK employers £45 billion a year, now more than ever is the time to take action on wellbeing. Mental health-related problems for businesses, including presenteeism, absences, and staff turnover, have increased 16% since Deloitte’s last survey in 2016.
Changes in work practices, particularly the ‘always on’ culture, have made it harder for employees to disconnect during their downtime, and employers haven’t yet figured out how to adapt to this new work culture.
Research from the CIPD found that two fifths of UK businesses have seen an increase in stress-related absences, with management style increasingly identified as the source of stress.