NELFT has been awarded Essex Working Well’s level three accreditation after demonstrating a strong wellbeing strategy for staff.

Working Well Essex, commissioned by Essex County Council, provide workplaces in Essex with health and wellbeing support and offer the Working Well accreditation to recognise an organisation’s commitment to health and wellbeing.

Organisations have an opportunity to earn three different levels of accreditation, with each level requiring a specific number of actions to be met that promotes, educates, and supports employee health and wellbeing.

Selina Douglas, Essex Executive Director of Partnerships at NELFT said:

“I am delighted that following our Essex Working Well Level 1 accreditation, NELFT has been awarded Essex Working Well Level 2 and 3 accreditations. We have worked hard to offer a holistic range of health and wellbeing initiatives to support our teams, acting on feedback from staff, and we are pleased this has been recognised.”

Building upon the Level 1 accreditation, to achieve the Level 2 and 3 accreditations NELFT had to evidence 16 key actions in total, some of which are outlined below:

1. Policies and procedures to promote employee health and wellbeing
2. Staff survey/workplace needs assessment
3. Recruit and train wellbeing ambassadors and committee
4. Events and initiatives
5. Financial wellness
6. NHS Health Checks
7. Fundraising

The evidence involved highlighting some of these key initiatives NELFT have as part of the holistic wellbeing offering:

• Free on-site NHS Health Checks for staff
• Management and staff training on key initiatives to support wellbeing at work
• Bi-weekly health and wellbeing newsletter promoting a wide range of wellbeing sessions along with signposting to internal and external sources of support
• Health and wellbeing ambassadors to promote and educate their team members about health and wellbeing initiatives
• 11 well established staff networks, supported by the Trust’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Team
• Initiatives such as Disability Passports and Carers Passports
• Flexible Working Policy to promote a healthy work-life balance
• Agile workspaces

NELFT are proud that we have been able to evidence our continued support of the workplace health agenda and remain committed to supporting the wellbeing of NELFT colleagues.