Welcome to the Kasozi Wellness blog, the topic is employee wellbeing in the UK!
What is employee wellbeing really? what does it actually involve and most importantly, how does an organisation know its schemes/programs and measures are working?
Having worked in my fair share of manual handling roles over the years, I can adequately state that employee wellbeing within the UK workplace is in need of some TLC.
Don't get me wrong, a lot of companies do have some form of a wellness program in place, this usually comes in the form of a mental health help line, discount gym membership or a cycle to work scheme, health insurance etc. These are pretty helpful benefits and when used they can benefit the employee very well, however they seem to just become a 'ticked box' on the company's to do list.
I conducted an employee wellness survey in 2019 at one of my previous manual handling job roles and it showed that 70% - 80% of the employees were unaware that we had access to even a discount gym membership let alone any of the other benefits and almost no-one at that particular site utilised any of the benefits at all.
One of the questions in the survey was "Do you/have you ever experience(d) any aches/pains or injuries since performing this particular job role?" around 80% of the staff members said yes!
So you have a warehouse where most of the people there would greatly benefit from and are in need of using the company wellness benefits for their physical health but yet they go unused.
I do not believe the organisation/employers are all to blame, these wellness benefits require the individual using them to change their life habits, to change who they are essentially and that isn't easy, with that being said more needs to be done!
Phil Kasozi October 2021