Are you ‘thinking different’ about the way you deliver occupational health? If you are making a difference in your organisation, then enter the Occupational Health Awards 2010. Now in their fourth year, the awards are firmly established as a highlight of the OH calendar. And as the profile of workplace health management rises in response to the government’s reforms following Dame Carol Black’s review of work and health, it is important to share good practice between the individuals and teams across the UK who are delivering services.
Last year, 24 shortlisted OH teams, plus judges, sponsors and VIPs gathered at an awards lunch to celebrate with the winners, meet new and old friends, entertain customers, and enjoy an exceptional lunch. The first step to ensuring you are one of this year’s guests is to get your entry in now.
The Occupational Health Awards celebrate the outstanding achievements of all those involved in workplace health and wellbeing, and recognise innovation, teamwork, leadership and quality.
How to enter
To make it as easy as possible to enter the awards, from this year, all entries will be submitted online. All you need to do is fill in the entry form on the Occupational Health Awards website, and follow the simple instructions.
Remember: you can only enter one category. Entries will be accepted from in-house OH teams who have worked with external providers, but the entry must be in the name of the client organisation.
If you have any queries about how to enter online, contact Noel O’Reilly at [email protected]. Entries must be in by Friday 26 June 2010.
Dates for your diary Entry deadline: Occupational Health Awards lunch: Tuesday 7 December 2010, Landmark Hotel, Central London |
The judging process
The shortlist and winners of the Occupational Health Awards are chosen by respected individuals in the field. There is one judge for each category who selects a shortlist of three, and later an overall winner.
The judges will assess the evidence of how you/your team achieved excellence in the following areas:
- Innovation and achievement
- Teamwork (including communication with partners outside the department)
- Leadership
- Effective use of resources
- Impact on employees and the business/organisation.
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Categories
Mental health and stress management
Stress and mental health problems are the biggest cause of health-related workplace absence. This award is for teams or individuals who can show they have intervened to promote employee resilience, or have acted to prevent work pressures leading to mental health-related absence. Entrants will need to explain the problem, how they tackled it, and the evidence that the intervention was successful.
Award for Absence Management
This award will recognise achievements in tackling both short- and long-term sick leave, and entrants should be able to demonstrate results in reducing overall absence, time taken to return to work, or other indicators of effective sickness absence management. The judge will look for evidence of practice, including how absence data was captured and used, the cost benefit case for absence intervention, involvement of line managers in tackling absence, and clinical approaches to achieving early return to work. Entrants who can demonstrate a proactive approach to managing absence will impress judges.
Award for Innovation in Occupational Health
While all of the categories will be judged on the criterion of innovation, this award will look for initiatives which are marked by taking a new approach or creating new solutions for workplace health challenges. This could simply be introducing a policy or practice and being able to demonstrate that it has benefited the target group. It could also involve using new clinical or data technology, giving employees access to OH services in an innovative way, introducing a new funding mechanism that enables early intervention by OH, or taking a more proactive approach to improving employee health. Entrants must explain how they have in some way changed the way that the OH service is delivered.
Award for Health Promotion and Wellbeing
This award is for individuals or teams that have taken a proactive approach to improving the health of employees. The judge will look for evidence that actions were taken to encourage employees to take responsibility for their own health, and that provision was made to help staff improve diet, fitness or general health. Teams that enter will show how they communicated their message to employees, and built a partnership with other stakeholders such as HR professionals and line managers. Entrants should try to give evidence of the benefits for employees and the organisation as a whole.
Award for Risk Management and Prevention of Ill Health
In many industry sectors, today’s workplaces still present traditional hazards to employee health, as well as new risks and big increases in ill health related to stress and musculoskeletal disorders. This presents not only the risk of high absence costs, but also the potential for costly litigation. This award recognises achievements in risk management and health surveillance which can demonstrate a reduced threat to the health of employees.
Award for Health and Wellbeing Service Delivery
This award is for the team that can best demonstrate how it has adapted its health and wellbeing service to the requirements of current and future challenges in the workplace and beyond, as outlined in the Black and Boorman reports. The judge will look for examples of how practitioners have developed a 21st century service that helps prevent ill health while maximising the opportunity to use the workplace as a setting to promote wellbeing. Teams should show how they have adapted their service to employer and employee needs, engaged managers and improved quality.
Sponsors
Axa Icas is a global provider of integrated health and wellbeing services. Occupational health, sickness absence management, employee assistance and wellbeing programmes are just a selection of its online and offline services. Axa Icas supports more than 1,700 corporate clients, covering more than 1.8 million employees worldwide.
Constructing Better Health plays a vital role as the interface between the construction industry and providers of OH services. It promotes a proactive approach to managing health in the workplace and its not-for-profit status ensures impartiality in all matters relating to the management and improvement of the health of construction workers.
Kays Medical provide first-aid medical supplies and first-aid biohazard training for occupational health nationally. As the only occupational health specialists, it offers customers professional advice, products and training, friendly after-sales care, and now the best biohazard clean-up products and training following Response UK Ltd acquisition.
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NHS Plus is a network of 115 NHS occupational health services and a Department of Health-funded organisational development programme. NHS Plus serves to increase the quality and delivery of health and work services and supports the government’s broader Health, Work and Wellbeing Strategy through:
- Helping develop the NHS as a model employer
- Delivering services to other public sector bodies and smaller businesses
- Supporting the development of quality occupational health practices.
Winners 2009
- Overall winner: Bangor University
- Award for Absence Management
- Winner: Grimsby Institute of Further and Higher Education
- Award for Best Occupational Health Team
- Winner: Nestle
- Award for Health Promotion and Wellbeing
- Winner: Bangor University
- Award for Innovation in Occupational Health
- Winner: NHS Plus and Occupational Health Clinical Effectiveness Unit
- Award for Mental Health and Stress Management
- Winner: Selex Galileo
- Award for Risk Management and Ill-Health Prevention
- Winner: The Lisheen Mine
