Toshiba introduced a wellness week last year, as part of a series of initiatives designed to improve employee health and wellbeing.
Susan Stevens, head of HR at Toshiba, explains: "We wanted to pull together all the themes we had introduced and reinforce the message that we valued our employees' health and wellbeing." The week was split in to three main themes - stress, nutrition and exercise - with a range of activities and health checks organised for employees.
These included workshops on coping with pressure, chair massages and free fruit. "The most popular session was the one we arranged with a dietician. We organised 15-minute [long] one-to-one sessions for employees and this was over-subscribed so we arranged additional telephone sessions," adds Stevens.
But while take-up of these initiatives was good, she admits that it was difficult to measure how effective the week was from a financial perspective. "We included a question on our last staff survey, asking whether they thought the company cared about their wellbeing and this was rated very positively. We do still get asked for free pedometers and see people using them so we believe they must have a positive impact on our employees," she says. Further events, including a hydration week, are planned for later in 2007.
