IOSH‘s ‘Managing Occupational Health and Wellbeing’ course, designed to create healthier and more productive places of work, has received high praise from business leaders after being delivered by an award-winning health and training provider earlier this month.
Ouch Training Team, based in Dorset and operating nationwide, offers dynamic training opportunities to ensure delegates understand how to take control in emergency situations and carry out effective planning and prevention to create safer and healthier working environments.
The course, ‘Managing Occupational Health and Wellbeing’, is developed by IOSH and provides practical advice and tools for managers, helping them understand why it is important to manage fluctuations in people’s health, what the causes of ill health can be and how to recognise when employees may be unwell.
In the UK alone, workplace injury and illness costs businesses £15 billion every year. Reports estimate that for every euro invested in occupational safety and health there is a return of €2.20.
A survey conducted for IOSH by market research consultancy Opinium revealed this year that four in 10 leaders of medium-sized businesses said sickness absence had had a significant, detrimental impact on their organisation’s productivity in the last five years. The survey also found that only 38 per cent of business leaders used training as a tactic for managing absence through injury or ill health, highlighting the need for greater integration of safety and health strategies.
The course provides important benefits to businesses, including improving health and wellbeing awareness across the organisation, providing internationally recognised certification for managers and supervisors and improving efficiency by reducing presenteeism.
Presenteeism, where workers who are unwell continue to come into work, can cause productivity loss, poor health and exhaustion in workplaces.
Jonathan Nobbs, head of Product at IOSH, said: “Managers have a duty to look after the health of their employees. IOSH’s Managing Occupational Health and Wellbeing course helps to articulate why it is important to manage fluctuations in people’s health, how to recognise if an employee is unwell and how to gain tools and techniques to improve health and wellbeing across an organisation. The course demonstrates that the preventative measures managers can take to mitigate wellbeing issues can pay dividends. One of the main outcomes of the course will be giving managers the confidence to start the discussion in the right way.”
Dina Alkhalidi, head of Customer Engagement at IOSH, said: “I am delighted to see that IOSH’s Managing Occupational Health and Wellbeing course has been well-received in the market. Delegate feedback has been extremely positive, with organisations understanding the importance of a healthy workforce and how this benefits both the employee and employer. We hope many more companies will consider taking the training and learning more about how to modernise approaches to protecting workforce health.”
Ouch Training Team delivered the training during a session in Wimborne, Dorset, on 8 November 2018. Delegates spoke enthusiastically of the benefits of the course and learned about health management and why it makes good business sense to manage occupational health and wellbeing in the workplace.
They also learned what a ‘health needs assessment’ is and the key considerations that should be considered when carrying one out.
Successful delegates were awarded with an IOSH Managing Occupational Health and Wellbeing certificate.
Simon Cassin CMIOSH, from Ouch Training Team, said: “The old methods of ensuring worker health and safety are inadequate for the ever-changing workplaces of today. IOSH’s new Managing Occupational Health and Wellbeing course is an excellent starting point for those wishing to bridge the gap between health and safety and HR functions. It enables an organisation to proactively support and protect the health and wellbeing of its employees whilst reaping the benefits of an engaged and healthy workforce.”
Delegates who attended the course gave positive insights, including:
“The IOSH Managing Health and Wellbeing Course covers a range of topics and is particularly helpful at showing you practical examples of how to get health into your risk assessments and equipping you with the skills needed to do this.”
“The subject itself was a new angle on regular health and safety provision, with the focus being on longer term health and wellbeing. It did offer different discussion and ideas to develop in the workplace, something I found very refreshing indeed. I would have no hesitation in thoroughly recommending this course, and in fact have done so on several occasions already!”
