Front of mind: A CBI guide on workplace health and wellbeing

In addition to the full Front of Mind report, the CBI has released a member exclusive guide outlining the three key steps to improve staff health and wellbeing.

The social conversation around people's mental health and the effect of the UK's ageing society on workplaces has increased over the past five years. This, alongside increasing evidence that healthy, happy and engaged staff improve company performance, makes proactively managing and supporting staff's health and wellbeing an ever more important business issue.

This guide, supported by Bupa and HCA Healthcare, offers good practice guidance to help employers improve health and wellbeing in their workplaces. While some UK firms are leading the way, most say that they aren't taking action because they don't know what works and can’t see the benefits for other businesses that have invested.

Having surveyed and interviewed firms of all sizes across the UK, this guide seeks to demonstrate the business case for making progress. It also recommends how employers can adopt an effective approach to workplace health and wellbeing based on the existing good practice of UK firms.

The CBI has found that UK firms leading the way on workplace health and wellbeing are taking these three steps which other employers can learn from:

1. Prioritising health and wellbeing from the top demonstrates its importance as a workplace issue and ensures that it is a shared priority across the business.
2. Targeting action towards early interventions can enable people to perform at their best and makes business sense.
3. Embedding good health and wellbeing depends on creating a culture that reinforces positive messages and prioritises staff health and wellbeing.