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UCL Workplace Health are pleased to announce that UCL has achieved the Foundation level accreditation for the London Healthy Workplace Award.
In gaining the Award, we are one of only of 300 organisations that have met the standards to date. Within the feedback the verifiers identified 16 areas where they were particularly impressed, including our strategic approach and they said our Staff Mental Health and Wellbeing Plan was ‘excellent’. This award highlights the resources and development that has gone into placing workplace wellbeing at the forefront of UCL’s values. This award is also a strong testament to all those who work in Workplace Health and their efforts and successes in bettering workplace wellbeing at UCL.
The Workplace Wellbeing team led on the award submission project alongside a student on placement from PsychUp and PaLS. Colleagues across many areas of UCL including Safety Services, Organisational Development, Equality Diversity and Inclusion, Estates Security and Wellbeing Champions contributed by providing evidence of local wellbeing practice which fed into our submission. UCL provided evidence within the submission to meet the standards as listed below:
- Corporate Support for Wellbeing - How the organisation uses its policies and management practices to create a working environment that supports health and wellbeing.
- Mental Health and Wellbeing - How the organisation promotes resilience, protects the mental wellbeing of workers and enables people to grow and succeed at work
- Healthy Lifestyle Promotion - How the organisation encourages and enables employees to make healthy lifestyle choices related to diet and exercise, alcohol consumption, and substance misuse.
London Healthy Workplace Award structure
The London Healthy Workplace Award is a workplace health and wellbeing framework and accreditation scheme led by the Mayor of London's Office and supported by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (previously known as Public Health England), with sponsorship from organisations throughout London. It acts as a template for good practice and recognises employers in London who invest in their employees’ health and wellbeing. The scheme supports organisations of all sizes across public, private, and voluntary sectors.
The current award is an updated version of the London Healthy Workplace Charter, which ran between 2012 – 2018 and incorporates the latest evidence on how best to promote health and wellbeing in the workplace. The Award has three levels and organisations need to work through the Foundation level before working towards Achievement and finally Excellence.
Next steps
The Staff Mental Health and Wellbeing Steering Group launched in August 2021 with membership from across UCL with it being co-chaired by Professor Peter Fonagy and Kevin Argent who will be leading on the Achievement stage.
The Workplace Wellbeing team continue to work with colleagues including our Wellbeing Champions, Mental Health First Aiders, departments, faculties and communities of practice to embed Being Well at UCL – which is our strategy for how we bring our Staff Mental Health and Wellbeing Action Plan alive across our community.
