Virgin Management focuses on delivering physical, mental and social wellbeing messages and initiatives over the autumn months to encourage its 200 London-based employees to maintain healthy habits over the winter season, including over Christmas.
The corporate management organisation uses a mix of communication channels, such as emails, posters and notifications sent via its benefits platform to highlight the support measures and initiatives Virgin Management has in place to encourage employees to adhere to a healthy lifestyle in the run-up to Christmas.
This includes details of on-site flu vaccinations, team exercise classes at a nearby gym, and office exercise equipment challenges using an office exercise bike and treadmill desk, to help employees manage their physical wellbeing. Meanwhile, regular mindfulness sessions, mental resilience training and mental first aid at work sessions will be promoted to support good mental health.
Nick Lawry, reward manager at Virgin Management, says: “Autumn is a good time to [deliver health and wellbeing messages] and get people back into good habits. We’ll do another [communications] run in January to get people back into good habits after Christmas. Good employers should be encouraging better habits; it’s encouraging people to be a bit healthier and supporting them to do that.
“It’s particularly important before Christmas because, especially from the mental health perspective, we want to be seen as a caring, positive employer and a lot of people may not have a support network over that time. Generally, people tend to slow down [over Christmas] and fall into bad habits, [such as] not exercising as much because they are not able to get out. As soon as [employees] slip out of that good habit, then it can become quite difficult to get back in again.”