EXCLUSIVE: Wates Group is to roll out on-site wellbeing kiosks in 2014.
The construction organisation will roll our kiosks for all employees, including contract staff, after trialling an on-site wellbeing kiosk, provided by The Wellbeing People, at its Leatherhead site in April 2013.
There will be two kiosks that move around Wates Group’s sites, from Glasgow down to Leatherhead, Bristol and London.
Kelly Osborne, health and safety at Wates Group, said: “We’re working with The Wellbeing People to determine the most effective way to reach all our sites.
“We are hoping to have two kiosks throughout the year, which will be rotated across our main office locations. They would stay from around two weeks up to a month, depending on the size of the office.
“What that will allow is for employees to monitor their own health in their own time. It’s a much more flexible option. The plan is to hit all of our office locations nationally by the end of the year, and then it will be a rolling event for the years that follow.”
The wellbeing kiosks will be communicated through poster launches, and promotional material emailed to staff, posted on the intranet and published in its quarterly newsletters and magazine.
“There is quite a wide range of areas where we would communicate that it’s ‘coming to an office near you’,” said Osborne. “There will be lot of promotional work to encourage employees to do it because it’s for their own benefit at the end of the day.”
Melisa Hanratty, HR programme manager at Wates Group, added that the employer also plans to communicate more effectively about its entire range of health support and explain to employees how much is on offer.
Wates Group provides its 1,600 monthly-paid employees with employer-paid private medical insurance (PMI) as a core benefit.
It also provides an employee assistance programme, and a flexible benefits scheme, through which staff can purchase additional cover for their dependants, such as PMI and dental cover.
The organisation had previously provided health screening for all monthly-paid employees, at three or five-year intervals, depending on what part of the business they worked in.
Hanratty added: “That was about an hour out with an occupational health nurse that took them through a range of tests.
“We wanted to maximise something like that, but make it more accessible to everybody. Rather than it just being a one in three year or one in five year event, we wanted it to be something that people could really get to grips with.”
