Samantha Bravo, Wellworking's HR and Health & Safety Manager, visited the Health & Wellbeing at Work event, to catch up on what's emerging in the world of workplace wellbeing to feed back to our own staff and Wellworking clients.
This event encompasses everything I love about workplace wellbeing. From the various exhibits, with organisations such as Flokk, HSE, Mind and Optima Health, to the plethora of seminars in HR, sickness absence, mental wellbeing and musculoskeletal health. Plus, I was surrounded by people from all over the UK, who like me, are passionate about the health of their workforce.
Launched back in 2005, Health & Wellbeing at Work is the most established event dedicated to improving the health, safety, wellbeing, behaviour and culture of today’s workforce. I have visited this event many times and am always astounded at the sheer number of people who attend.
Health and wellbeing at work is by no means a new concept. From my nearly 20 years in the people industry, I know that a company with healthy, engaged people is a successful organisation. Events, such as this one, help businesses to learn and understand how important health at work is. Our company is not called Wellworking for no reason, our main driver is to help make sure people are working well.
Some of the most interesting exhibits included a demonstration of the new bamboo and vegan leather wrist rest by Contour, sustainability-friendly laptop stands by Ergonomic Café, and the stand by Nook, who specialise in workspace pods with mood lighting and sound proofing.
The puppy therapy area had by far the biggest draw but unfortunately, I was too late to secure a space! Visitors had the opportunity to sit in a group and chat whilst cuddling and playing with a litter of gorgeous puppies, which is known to help reduce stress and decrease blood pressure.
This year’s event also included seminars and discussions around some of the most talked about topics of the last twelve months such as the menopause, hybrid working, the huge rise in sickness absence and the 4-day working week.
Businesses have a huge responsibility to their staff and having the opportunity to enhance their knowledge from such a wealth of influential speakers, with some of the country’s leading health and wellbeing brands, can only help to increase the success of the UK’s businesses.
I know I've come away with lots of ideas about how we can improve our own workplace and the wellbeing of Wellworking staff. We can then feed that out to the clients we work with when helping design their new spaces.