They work closely with management, HR and their colleagues to develop health and wellbeing initiatives. It is a voluntary role, and it's suitable for people who are approachable, helpful, and interested in health and wellbeing.
Benefits of workplace health champions
It is important to support your employees to be healthy and well, this has obvious advantages to every workplace but also supports a workforce to feel valued, hopefully leading to better staff retention.
Workplace health champions can motivate and inspire colleagues to make small changes to have a positive impact on their lifestyle and wellbeing. As a result, employees may take less time off work sick, feel happier in the workplace and therefore be more productive.
Workplace health champions can foster a culture of support by having an on-site point of contact for employee health and wellbeing.
Being a health champion
The role of a champion can be varied and depends on your employee needs. It may be signposting colleagues to services, providing information and promoting national health campaigns on site.
They can also be the driving force to motivate staff and help them set achievable health related goals. champions may also organise sessions and activities for small groups wanting to achieve a shared goal. All positive steps towards a healthier and happier workforce.
Training course
To become a workplace health champion, individuals will complete an e-learning course, this is made up of 2 elements:
- e-learning - continuing professional development (CPD) accredited Level 2 understanding health improvement e-learning course from the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH). This course is normally £60 per person, (by registering as a Derbyshire Workplace Health champion, the costs will be covered by Healthy Workplaces Derbyshire).
- A bespoke Healthy Workplaces Derbyshire Module which has been developed specifically to support the role of a health champion within a workplace.
The course takes approximately 8 hours to complete at your employee's convenience (maximum 6 months' timescale for completion).
Once trained, the workplace champions will be awarded 8 CPD points from the RSPH. They will also have access to resources, newsletters, and networking groups to support their role.
Register for the course
If you haven't already registered with Healthy Workplaces Derbyshire you'll need to complete our register of interest form and select that you or your workplace is interested in the workplace health champion training.
Register your interest in Healthy Workplaces
If you've already registered with us, please email healthy.workplaces@derbyshire.gov.uk with your name, workplace name and email address of the person who has agreed to take part in the training. One of our team with then contact the nominated employee with details of how they can access the course.