EXCLUSIVE: BNP Paribas focuses on staff wellbeing

BNP Paribas has expanded its focus on employee wellness by appointing an onsite health and wellbeing manager and onsite physiotherapist, and hosting regular health and wellbeing events.

This is all part of the bank’s ‘Help yourself to health’ programme, which was rolled out earlier this year.

The firm has appointed the manager of its onsite gym, run by Nuffield Health, as health and wellbeing manager.

Under its employer-funded health screening programme, it is now aiming to categorise employees as either green, amber or red, and followed up, if necessary, by a full-time onsite physiotherapist, who was appointed in Februar.

It is also looking to boost health screening take up. Thomas Hiles, benefits manager at BNP Paribas, said: “Even though the bank pays for everyone to have a health screen, we have only had about a 15% take-up from staff in the past. Perhaps it has not been promoted in the past or made clear what the benefits were. In 2011, we got it increased to about 40%. This year we are targeting above 50%.”

The bank is also running a series of onsite health events and activities, focusing on themes such as nutrition, blood pressure, sports injuries, post- and pre-natal exercises, quitting smoking, and cancer awareness.

BNP Paribas is also introducing a quarterly, rather than annual, enrolment window for its bikes-for-work scheme. In March, it hosted an onsite promotion with provider Cyclescheme.

“It is a lot of little things like that, which in the past have not been talked about, maybe staff do not know they exist or might not have the time to follow-up or research themselves,” said Hiles. “There is lot more focus now on getting employees to use more preventative healthcare.”

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