We value our staff in NICVA, they are our greatest strength, so we want to support their health and wellbeing in whatever way we can.
The Work Well Live Well programme was a great way of giving us a structure and motivation to review our practices and introduce new initiatives to improve the wellbeing of staff.
The Programme is delivered by NICHS and funded by the PHA. It's aim is to improve the health and wellbeing of employees in workplaces. It achieves this by working to the World Health Organisation's (WHO) Health Workplace Model.
We now have two Health Champions and one Mental Health First Aider who are part of a wider Wellbeing group made up of seven staff from across the organisation. We engage with staff to find out what they would like, organise activities and build awareness around health and wellbeing issues.
We provide a range of ways for staff to engage in wellbeing activities from links to further information to individual/group activities that allow employees to take part to suit their work patterns.
We asked the staff for their feedback in a Wellbeing survey in September 2022.
100% surveyed said in the last year NICVA provided opportunities to improve physical health.
100% surveyed said NICHS health checks were helpful – 93% said extremely or very helpful.
80% of respondents believes NICVA’s One Planet Group helps reduce energy usage and carbon footprint
Activities in the last year
- NICVA to the North Pole - walking challenge in December 2021.
- Couch to 5km - nicknamed "The Jazzies", motivating staff to get out walking and running through a whats app group
- NICHS health checks for staff September 2022
- Coffee morning fundraiser for MacMillan 10 October 2022
- NICVA team for 10-pin bowling competition 12 October 2022
- Reelrobics to kick start Organisational Development Team meeting 21 October 2022
- Well-being workshops
- Staff Newletters with blogs and useful information about health and wellbeing
- Encouraging and supporting charity runs, such as Red Dress Run and Belfast Marathon Relay
- Recipe swaps
- "Library" in NICVA for books swaps
- One Planet Group’s work throughout the year - an internal group set up to identify ways in which NICVA could start reducing its carbon footprint.
- Cycle to work scheme
Ideas for next year
We carried out a survey with staff in September 2022 and some of the ideas are listed below. We will discuss these and other suggestions with staff at our next all-staff meeting and agree a Well-being plan for 2023.
- Step challenges
- Quarterly staff lunches
- Seat yoga workshop
- Yoga classes at lunchtime in NICVA
- Walking meetings
- Workshops - stress management and menopause
- Charity Walk
- Quaterly fundraising events
- Quarterly wellbeing sessions after all staff meeting
To find out more
If you want to find out more about the Work Well Live Well programme, you can go to the NICHS website.
