A large part of the Wellbeing Clinic work is helping business and organisations deal with stress in the workplace. At the clinic we deal with many organisations who offer services to their employees to help deal with stress.
These can range from:
- Counselling
- Mediation
- Stress awareness training for employees~managers
- Mini sessions of massage and reflexology
- Chiropractic assessments for muscular skeletal problems
- Nutritional sessions
The overall aim of these services is to enable employers to help employees deal with what is causing them stress in their lives whether the stress is coming from work or home. All the services on offer are designed to help the individual gain a deeper understanding of what stress is and how it is effecting them in there lives, then giving them the tools to deal with these situations in a more productive way.
The sort of issues that people may need help with may be a dispute with a colleague about new working arrangements, or being over worked by a manger/supervisor and not being able to express these concerns in an appropriate way due to poor self esteem, a stressful period at work due to a heavy work load or colleagues being off sick meaning there are less staff available to do the same job. Although stress affects a persons performance at work it may be nothing to do with work but what is going on at home such as a change in family circumstances, a bereavment or illness.
In our experience an employer often wants to help but is not sure how to do this or were there responsibility begins and ends or what stress really is.
Employers often feel that although they are sympathetic to issues an employee is experiencing at home it is not there responsibilty to pay to sort out these issues.
Or they may say I don't have anyone off with stress.
I want to do something but I don't have the budget it's going to cost me a lot of money.
I am always reluctant to pay for something that is not going to make me money.
My business is not very big I cant' afford to pay for something like this.
These are all valid statements but the reality is that there are solutions to all of them.
Although as an employer you may feel reluctant to pay for an employees home troubles but they are often unable to leave those troubles at home when they come into work. Although there may not be many people away from work, who have been labeled by there doctor as having "stress" there will be people who are taking more than the average amount of sick days, with colds, IBS, or just feeling under the weather, these people may be suffering with stress. Not many people will admit to feeling truly stressed. (95% of the people we see a the Wellbeing Clinic are still in work). We work hard to keep people in the work place and functioning to the best of their ability.
As a business owner myself I am always aware of my budgets and laying out money for something that is not in theory going to generate income. But the reality is that if an employee is taking more than the average amount of sick days they are costing you money, if they are not functioning as well as they should they are costing you money. If you have to take on agency staff to cover sick days they are costing you money. Employers are often surprised when they are told of the cost to themselves, there are no retainer fees you only pay when you use Wellbeing Clinic services and as a employer you would only be reasonably expected to pay for six sessions in the vast majority of cases this will fix the problem. Were ever possible an an employer you will be given feed back on how you can assist the employee at work. (This won't include any personal details as that is all confidential between counsellor and employee)
As an organisation we have a huge variety of services to offer to business to fit any size and industry, the question of employee Health and Wellbeing is one that is here to stay stress is a subject that we are not going to be able to keep sweeping under the carpet.
www.wellbeing-clinic.co.uk
Tuesday, June 22, 2010 at 11:54AM 
