Better Health at Work Alliance to become a one-stop-shop for workplace health

The first organisation formed specifically to be a one-stop-shop for workplace health, offering free guidance to employers and addressing the need to make finding expertise easy, will launch in February 2016.

Industry led, The Better Health at Work Alliance (BHWA) will bring together a broad range of leading organisations and individual experts to collaborate in offering their knowledge and insight. From niche services to mainstream health & wellbeing specialists, the experts will span occupational health, wellness, risk and safety, insured solutions, mental health, rehabilitation and wellness technology amongst other key fields.

BHWA’s mission is to make finding expertise and services easy, so that implementing workplace health practice becomes a simple and obvious step for all employers, through their integrated digital platform and membership opportunities. Offering access to solutions, information, and guidance via a simple one-stop website, users will be able to tap into expert knowledge with free resources including an ‘Ask the Expert’ forum, collaborative wikis, and guides, all of which will be subject to peer review.

For the expert participants themselves, BHWA will generate idea sharing in its best form. The alliance will underpin the evolving multi-disciplinary approach to workplace health service delivery, becoming the industry’s main cross-sector channel for networks, learning updates and ultimately strategic partnerships. Aiding industry-wide progress and individual business growth, BHWA will also serve to champion the bottom line benefits of investing in employee health and wellness.

BHWA has a double message for employers:  Safeguarding the health of your workforce is essential; but beyond that, nurturing and improving the health of your staff, and thus being valued as a caring employer, has significant bottom line rewards for any organisation. The intended impact of this initiative is to improve the health and wellbeing of the UK working population - to the benefit of all.

The Better Health at Work Alliance is the brainchild of Charlotte Cross, previously instrumental in the set-up of the Commercial Occupational Health Providers Association in 2004 and the working group that formalised as the Council for Work and Health in 2009, both successful to this day.

She says of the launch:

Making workplace health services simpler to understand and easy to find is a long overdue essential for our industry.

For employers seeking help it’s an easy way to find solutions and guidance. Even those well versed in work-health will find it a useful ‘one-stop’ resource for the latest insight; and for the experts themselves, it is a place to be found but more essentially a place to learn and evolve their service.

We've tried to think of everything to make this a truly helpful resource to employers and experts alike. Our plan is to make this service so useful that users can't ever imagine being without it!

Mark Braithwaite, Managing Director of Gipping Occupational Health, a founder member, says of the plans:

This initiative is worth making time for. It will encompass a superb blend of specialists, underpinning every essential to modern and progressive workplace health. As working environments now demand so much more from us all, it’s excellent to have effective solutions made readily available, providing employers with access to so many ideas to help them thrive and stay competitive.

We’re happy to share our expertise and proud to be founders. I’m looking forward to being part of an enjoyable community and building many strong and lasting working partnerships.

Alex Goldsmith, CEO of Medigold Health, a founder member, also commented:

I am delighted we are founding members of BHWA. I believe a forward-thinking initiative like this is long overdue in the health and wellbeing at work sector, which is sometimes guilty of being staid.

As pioneers in occupational health, we are excited to be part of an alliance which is at the forefront of championing and developing our industry via the specialists, organisations and individuals that work within it.

I am personally a firm believer in collaboration being the key to success as ultimately, people learn from people.  This principle underpins many of the features of BHWA’s membership offering and this shared ethos is what first attracted us to contributing.