CASE STUDY
Business : Workplace Wellness Location : Bradford on Avon Founded : 2017 No of employees : 6
The Peer Networks programme has helped us look at issues in different ways . As a result , we are now reviewing many of our processes for greater efficiencies
Workplace Wellness provides a tailored occupational health service to keep people happy , healthy and safe in the workplace .
Services include Fit for Work assessments , Health Surveillance risk assessments , immunisations and a range of services to help organisations promote a healthy lifestyle and wellbeing at work .
Our occupational health business receives referrals from organisations about the wellbeing of their staff and provides health testing of employees as required by law . When COVID-19 hit , some of our clients stopped working and those that carried on had a whole different series of questions about their employees that needed answering . Our first need was to make sure that we had accurate and comprehensive knowledge about the virus ; the illness , the medicine , antigens , antibodies , testing and the Government-led response .
Our clients needed rapid answers about implementing lockdown regulations ; which employees were ‘ clinically vulnerable ’ and ‘ extremely clinically vulnerable ’, and how could they be best protected in the workplace and at home .
We developed a rapid COVID-19 assessment service , taking 15 minutes , giving comprehensive advice to employee and employer over the ‘ phone followed up with email .
Diversifying to survive and thrive
For the usual type of referral , which formerly occurred face-to-face at our premises , we introduced an encrypted secure video service to enable us to conduct remote consultations . This has been very successful being more convenient for employees , whether working from home or the workplace .
Guided by advice from the Health and Safety Executive , health testing has become a remote exercise except where required for safety critical roles . This changeover occurred smoothly and enabled companies to discharge their duty of care to employees without interruption .
From challenge to opportunity
Our biggest achievement over the past year has been looking at the pandemic as an opportunity . While income initially fell , expenses fell further and have stayed low , so profitability has increased . We have achieved this expense reduction by a combination of restructuring , furlough , new technology and more efficient processes . We believe the business is in a good position for growth in the future .
Growth Hub support
We were introduced to the Growth Hub by Bradford on Avon networking organisation , BoA Business . We received an ERDF grant admistered by the Growth Hub which was used to help us promote our services to a new sector for us – construction . We also accessed the Digital Health Check enabling us to move from an unreliable server to the Cloud giving us better and more accessible IT services . In addition , we received a mentoring session and joined the Peer Networks programme where we benefitted from being introduced to like-minded business owners . We also joined the government ’ s Kickstart Scheme - co-ordinated by the Growth Hub , it provides funding for employers to create job placements for 16-24 year olds .