The move comes as Vapour opens its doors to enable a safe return to work for employees who want to come back, following the Covid-19 lockdown.
Employees can complete a 30-minute confidential health questionnaire to assess their current physical and psychological health. Covering everything from nutrition, hydration and physical activity to anxiety, depression and stress in the workplace, the findings are instantly summarised and given back to every individual in the form of a personal health report.
The aim is to encourage them to think more closely about their own wellbeing and take steps to improve their wellness levels when working in the office or from home.
The company-wide results have also been collated anonymously, in a more detailed document with measurable actions, for Vapour’s senior management team to review and implement as the weeks unfold. At an employer level, the goal is to improve the organisation’s agility and resilience to the current health crisis, better protect the workforce and mitigate the threats to business continuity.
The process will be repeated in three months’ time, and again six months after that, to continually monitor what is a movable situation. This investment will see Vapour accredited as a ‘Champion Employer’ for the next 12 months.
Commenting on the roll out of the health assessments, Vapour’s head of operations and compliance Carol McGrotty said, “The psychological impact of lockdown, social distancing, work-life juggles, loss of loved ones and general anxieties surrounding the pandemic, have all been widely documented.
“So, as we continue to think about our true duty of care to staff – beyond simply legislative compliance – we wanted to ensure we provide a safe environment for colleagues to review their mental health. And of course, we’ll implement as many improvements as we can, to strengthen our collective wellbeing.”
When considering the reasons for investing in the Champion Health programme specifically, McGrotty added, “We’ve followed Champion Health’s story from the very beginning, as founder Harry Bliss has been speaking to our CEO Tim Mercer for some time about the savvy use of tech for good in the workplace.
“Harry’s model helps to uncover and proactively address health issues which may otherwise remain unidentified. His stats show that in a typical organisation of our size, four people may have thought about taking their life at some stage. This shows how crucial it is for employers to sit up and pay attention to what remains a relatively untapped form of ‘first aid’.”
Champion Health was founded by Harry Bliss, who lost a close friend to suicide in 2018 following an acute bout of workplace stress. Bliss will feature in an upcoming episode of the new podcast series – Between the Eyes – produced by Vapour’s CEO Tim Mercer, due for release this summer.