Winners of the second New Zealand Workplace Wellness Award

Winners of the second New Zealand Workplace Wellness Awards

The winners of the second New Zealand Workplace Wellness Awards have been crowned.

Te Wānanga o Aotearoa, Sanitarium, Auckland Museum, Canterbury District Health Board and Sancta Maria College all took home awards at the prestigious event.

Run by the Heart Foundation and the Health and Productivity Institute of NZ (HAPINZ), the awards aim to acknowledge and recognise excellence in workplace health and wellness programmes by corporations, companies and organisations.

The awards were presented at the 'Create a healthy workplace on a budget' forum at Te Papa, Wellington last night. (November 19).

The forum was hosted by the Health Promotion Agency (HPA), ACC and Regional Public Health.
The awards have been run and they were presented by ACC Minister Judith Collins and Spotless NZ National Manager – Safety, Health and Environment Eta Lilac.

There were three award categories:

Business and organisations with less than 300 employees;
Business and organisations with 300+ employees;
Best new programme/activities (programmes that have the foundations in place but may not have yet seen measurable change).

Te Wānanga o Aotearoa and Sanitarium were the joint winners of the “business and organisations with more than 300 employees” category.

Judges were impressed with the well-developed systems and diversity of Sanitarium’s programmes which showed measureable outcomes for employees, while the Te Wānanga o Aotearoa programme showed creativity, high levels of engagement and a holistic approach to workplace wellbeing including multilingual wellness information.

“Both submissions were very strong and making a difference to the health and wellbeing of their staff; yet totally different and so we felt both deserved to win,” said Judge Maggie McGregor – Heart Foundation’s Strategic Advisor on Public Health.

Auckland Museum won the “business and organisations with less than 300 employees category.
Judges said the application stood out with specific objectives and benchmark data to help track success for future years. The Auckland Museum approach included families as well as staff so building strong social networks and leading to a reduction in sick leave.

Canterbury District Health Board (CDHB) won the best new programme/activities (programmes that have the foundations in place but may not have yet seen measurable change) category.

Judges commented that the CDHB deserved great credit for implementing such a well-developed programme across multiple sites in a relatively short space of time. Special mention should be made of the Staff Wellbeing Action Group, where staff implement the feedback of their peers into the programme.

Auckland’s Sancta Maria College picked up a special innovation award for a programme that has extended outside the school gate and has gained interest from other schools and the Ministry of Education.

Judges had not planned this award, but due to its innovative thinking and impact they felt it deserved special mention. Over 18 months staff sick leave has reduced by an average of 27% over four terms. The programme has buy-in from staff, management and board and is now being looked at to pilot elsewhere around New Zealand.

Heart Foundation Medical Director Professor Norman Sharpe says workplaces can play a crucial role in positively influencing the health of their workforce.

“With more and more New Zealand adults being overweight, there is no better time to take action to help improve employees’ health and the health of your business overall,” he says.
HAPINZ Chairperson Kelly Martin-Davis says it was great to see such a high standard of entries for the awards.

“I’m impressed with how many companies have improved their business competitiveness through valuing the health and wellbeing of their employees,” she says. “The institute aims to improve the health and wellbeing of New Zealanders and reduce health system costs by using the workplace as a setting for the delivery of preventive health services.

“Businesses who do offer tangible wellness initiatives often demonstrate increased employee engagement along with many other benefits to both the employees and the business overall”.

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