NHC awarded Better Health at Work Silver Award

We are delighted to announce that we have achieved our Better Health at Work Silver Award!

The Better Health at Work Award (BHAWA) recognises the efforts of employers in the North East and Cumbria in addressing health issues within the workplace.

Having achieved the Bronze award in late 2022 – and our HR Manager Kay winning Health Advocate of the Year for Sunderland as part of the Award – we have now achieved the Silver award which builds upon the basics of the Bronze level and rewards organisations that take a more holistic view of the workplace.

Our health advocates ran four successful wellbeing campaigns for staff over the course of 2023. One of these was a ‘Get Moving’ campaign to encourage physical activity which included a full staff team walk, a laughter yoga session and an external consultant talking to staff about good posture and practice for desk working. Health advocates also organised a mental health campaign, including a webinar series with Dr Victoria Miller from Mindcare Consulting on key issues such as trauma, stress, anxiety and work life balance.

Staff also had access to various resources as part of a financial wellbeing campaign, with advice on saving the pennies, gambling awareness and budgeting. The final campaign was on environmental sustainability, with National Energy Action coming in to speak to staff about being sustainable in the home and reducing energy costs. We have also secured a place on the Investors in Environment Become Green Together programme which provides 12 months of expert support on how to make your organisation environmentally sustainable.

BHAWA assessors commented:

“Northern Housing Consortium have compiled and submitted an excellent Silver Award submission, highlighting lots of innovative activity carried out throughout the year with many cross-cutting themes. Despite many staff working hybrid, they have continued to build on staff engagement and feedback shows the value employees get from the health and wellbeing campaigns.”

You can find out more about the BHAWA here: https://www.betterhealthatworkaward.org.uk/