Good leadership key to healthy workforce

The vital role that strong leadership plays in transforming an organisation's health and safety culture has been stressed at the British Safety Council's conference Transforming the culture of workplace health and safety.

Speakers from organisations with exceptional health and safety records offered an insight into how they have transformed the health and safety culture in their own organisations. adidas, the Dawn Group, Diageo Packaging, Linklaters and Wylfa Power Station have all gone beyond compliance and legal requirement to invest time and effort to reduce days lost through ill health and injury.

adidas spoke about how it has seen employee sickness rates drop to below the national average thanks to the introduction of an employee wellness programme. For the last 15 years, adidas has worked with Wellness International on the implementation of a wellness centre that offers employees a free to use service including a gym, lifestyle centre and medical support. Tricia Kallow, CEO of Wellness International said: “Employees are the people behind the magic, if they are not healthy then your business is not healthy.”