News Story Date : 08 July, 2009

Hertfordshire County Council Reach ‘Fit For Business’ Recognition

Congratulations to Hertfordshire County Council (HCC) on completing their first year on the Fit For Business (FFB) Health & Wellbeing Programme. The Council have attained ‘FFB Recognition’ and are now a recognised Healthy Workplace. This has several benefits to the Council:

· Often companies use this ‘Recognition’ to support the Investors In People (IIP) ‘Health & Wellbeing at Work’ strand
. Being recognised as a healthy workplace helps businesses attract high quality employees
· Demonstrates that the organisation is leading in the forefront to promoting Health & Wellbeing at work, which ties in with National Campaigns; such as the Department of Health’s ‘Change 4 Life’

HCC have been exemplary in embracing the Fit For Business programme, and the Workplace Champion (WPC) team are delighted with their success.

The Council have delivered some fantastic interventions over the past year, highlights being:

· The extremely successfully ‘Fruity Friday’ campaign, linking in with the World Cancer Research Fund, (WCRF) highlighting the benefits of eating your ‘5 a day’. This activity introduced fun aspects such as quizzes and free fruit give-aways, supported by the Big Lottery Funded ‘Wellbeing In The East Campaign’ who fund the Fit For Business scheme within HCC. At the same time the Workplace Champions ensured not to lose sight of the serious message that eating the recommended amount of fruit can help as a preventative against cancers, by offering Occupational Health advice and leaflets on cancer as well as providing one to one information.
· The council also worked closely with the local County Sports Partnership ‘Herts Sports Partnership’ to run a successful ‘Pedometer Challenge’ walking a collective 7,293,467 steps between the 56 Council employees that took part. Overall the challenge across 5 Hertfordshire based businesses clocked up a massive 36,565,333 steps, which equates to an incredible 13,632 miles. Collectively the 5 companies walked from New York to Sydney going via London! This certainly encouraged them on to reach the recommended 5 x 30 minutes of physical activity per week!
· During their first year HCC won ‘Intervention of the Month’ for their “Know Your Limits” Christmas campaign (pictured). Road shows were run by the Road Safety Unit, along with workshops and quizzes promoting alcohol awareness and responsible drinking.

Fit for Business Workplace Champion Co-ordinator Lauren commented on their success: “Hertfordshire County Council have demonstrated a really strong wellbeing program has been instigated over the past year, we look forward to supporting them move forward during the next Fit For Business year and to help support them gain Recognition for a second year running!”

Well Done Hertfordshire County council!

For information on Fit For Business and how to get your company involved visit our website http://www.fitforbusiness.org.uk or use the ‘Fit For Business’ tab linking through from the Creating Excellence Homepage.

Links to organisations/website in this News Story

http://www.investorsinpeople.co.uk/MEDIARESEARCH/TOOLS/Pages/HealthAndWellbeingatWork.aspx
http://www.nhs.uk/Change4Life
http://www.wcrf-uk.org