Global car manufacturer Volvo participated in Britain’s Healthiest Workplace study, run by VitalityHealth, in 2016. Volvo used its senior management team to promote the benefits of regular health checks, improvements to diet, and increased physical activity levels.
It achieved this through a combination of wellness days to provide key health and wellbeing insights, charity and challenge days, and family-orientated activities for employees and their children.
Volvo also has a separate health and wellness budget and an Employee Motivation Team (EMT) to drive engagement in health and wellbeing.
Its health and wellbeing strategy has produced significant results. For example, around 35% more employees have started to use activity trackers in the last three years. As a result, in 2015, this helped to produce a 9% reduction in the number of employees whose health was at risk due to inadequate levels of physical activity, as well as a 4% reduction in those classified as overweight or obese.
This increase in engagement is also having a positive impact on several key corporate objectives: absenteeism rates have reached historic lows and staff retention rates have reached all-time highs.
Simon Eade, HR manager at Volvo Cars UK, says: “Our core strength comes from our people and it is our Volvo Cars culture that unites us. This culture, this open mind, this care for each other, is our competitive edge. We work with health and safety as a part of our Volvo Cars culture. As a human-centric company, we aim to offer a safe and healthy workplace, and a work-life balance.”