The “bedrock” of the CIPD Well-being Pyramid is culture, leadership and people management. These are the best ways to ensure you’re creating a solid foundation to your workplace well-being efforts:
Include a commitment to Healthy Eating in your Wellbeing Policy
Your overall Workplace Wellness Policy will be an essential part of your commitment to the health of your employees. Some of the most important pillars to health include healthy eating, social connection and support, movement, sleep and stress management.
As such, it is likely your Workplace Wellness initiatives will include supports in these areas. Outlining how your organisation will support employees to optimise their eating while at work, will be an important part of your policy. As always, employee participation is important, even in policy development, to create an empowering and supportive environment. Workplace dedication to employee healthy eating will typically include explicit information on:
- The organisation’s commitment to Ireland’s Healthy Eating Guidelines for catering at events, meetings, workplace cafeterias/restaurants and vending machines etc.
- Facilities for storing or preparing home-made foods and adequate time for meal breaks etc.
- Access to drinking water.
- Consider a commitment to local farmers or other local food sourcing.
- How the organisation will promote awareness of healthier dietary options etc.
We provide many resources and templates for developing workplace policies.
It’s important to note that while incorporating a wellbeing policy is the bedrock of a sound organisational approach to workplace wellness, this may be difficult and will take time. Working on the other activities in tandem with incremental policy development may be necessary to facilitate this level.
Identify Health Champions
It is important to formally dedicate a member of senior-level staff to this wellbeing area by including healthy eating promotional activities in their job description and performance reviews, while building their capacity with appropriate training if necessary.
Continuous commitment to the workplace wellbeing programme
It is important to incorporate the wellbeing of your employees into your core values and the company’s strategic plan. Wellness staff and employees should be supported both with resources (budget, tools, trainings etc.) and with encouragement (job security, reasonable flexibility with time and productivity expectations when availing of initiatives, leading by example etc.)
Making your work environment supportive
Make a commitment to including foods recommended in the Healthy Eating Guidelines with adequate access to drinking water.
Additionally, commit to adhering to Healthy Ireland’s Healthy Meetings Guidelines to ensure that the healthy eating choice is the easy choice at your meetings, events, workplace cafeterias/restaurants or vending machines.
Also ensure that employees have a comfortable space and adequate time to prepare and enjoy their meals. Don’t forget that shift or night workers should have access to healthy food options and facilities as well.
We provide many resources and tools for developing a supportive workplace environment.
Link with National Policies
Healthy Food for Life is the Department of Health’s guidelines to healthy eating in Ireland. Additionally, Healthy Ireland has a Healthy Weight Campaign.