In May 2021 South Essex College registered with the Healthy Workplace service, the project is designed to support local employers to review the health and wellbeing of their staff. Initially the college sent out a staff survey to gain insight into the current health and wellbeing status of staff as well as their requests for support. From the survey results Everyone Health was able to develop an action plan with the College, some tasks where internal to the college and others were things that Everyone Health could support with.
The first action by Everyone Health was delivering Making Every Contact Count (MECC) Training. The course aims to give competence and confidence to people to deliver health and wellbeing messages, to help encourage changes to behaviours and direct to local services that can support them.
The next step South Essex College took was to arrange workplace health checks. Due to the number of staff, it was arranged for health checks to be offered 2 days a week for a month. It proved so popular that staff attended on their days off and more dates were booked to meet demand. The Health checks gave staff the chance to have a 30 minute appointment to review health matters such as weight, blood pressure and cholesterol levels.
Following each health check, where appropriate, staff were referred into local services such as weight management, physical activity programmes, stop smoking services or a referral back to their G.P surgery.
In May 2022 a follow up staff survey will be completed to assess if the action plan has had a positive impact on staff’s health and wellbeing.
Well done to South Essex College for taking your staff’s wellbeing seriously.
