While it's obviously important for organisations to look after their staff in as many ways as they can - including Employee Assistance Programmes, private medical insurance for employees, occupational health services, and so on - building a 'culture of health' into the organisation is also imprtant, ensuring that people are aware of healthy lifestyles, and how they can help individuals as well as the places they work.
Many workplaces encourage physical activity - with facilities for people who have cycled into work, then there's also the opportunity to offer healthy food through the staff canteen, and so on. And of course there's an entire calendar full of events that people can take part in for charity such as 5k runs.
But one thing that should always be on the health agenda is information on health and wellbeing. It could be done using posters, emails, intranet or by getting health professionals in to talk to staff, or by holding events to promote your organisation's health values.
It's also worthwhile making sure people have a list of healthy links that they can visit while they're surfing the web after work or at lunchtime. It could be something as simple as a list of useful sites detailing health and safety, or pointing people in the direction of NHS pages for seasonal illnesses such as influenza. Another good health information practice would be to set up and manage a health blog for the company or for employees - with space for people o discuss the latest news and events within the company. A health blog list could also be produced showing a number of sites with regularly updated health information.
