Thank you to everyone who took the time to complete our health & wellbeing survey for 2021, it’s really important to us because it helps us understand the best way to support you moving forwards.

As a result of last year’s survey we ran informative webinars on financial health and posture whilst working. In addition we trained all our leaders in Mental Health First Aid.

The results were overwhelmingly positive, which is fantastic news, especially at a time when many people’s wellbeing may have been negatively affected by the pandemic. In fact, in the majority of areas there has been an improvement since our 2019survey, which is fantastic. In particular, there has been an increase from 84%to 96% in people saying we encourage a healthy work/life balance. This could well be down to the introduction of our flexible working principles. It’s great to see them having a positive impact.

In addition, there’s been an increase in those managing to do 150 minutes of exercise a week (up from 44% in 2019 to 57% in 2021) and those of you eating 5 portions of fruit and veg a day (up from 18% in 2019 to 33% in 2021).

Our flexible working arrangements appear to have meant you’ve found more time to live a healthier lifestyle. We also gave everyone access to The Other Room Gym and introduced healthy cook-along webinars which may have contributed to this. We are committed to continuing with this approach once restrictions have been lifted.

In terms of mental health, there’s been a slight increase in people feeling comfortable talking to their manager about stress, anxiety or depression (from 57% to 61%) which maybe the result of rolling out Mental Health First Aid to all members of staff. We would like to ensure even more of you would feel comfortable approaching your manager about mental health and we’ll continue to build a culture around this, through webinars, resources and training for managers.

The four key areas that the survey identified for us to focus on are:

Women’s Health

Self-care

Sleep

Musculoskeletal issues

We are already making plans to address these areas, so do keep an eye on Totem in the coming weeks and months for new resources & webinar dates.

If you have any questions relating to the survey, or to employee health & wellbeing in general, please email [email protected]

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