Award checklist

As part of the Award Programme, it is important that you are addressing minimum health and safety requirements.

Applicants are therefore asked to complete and submit, a signed 11-point Health and Safety checklist before the Award assessment.

Our free and confidential Adviceline – 0800 019 2211 – or your Healthy Working Lives Adviser can support you to meet this requirement.

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Bronze Award

Core criteria
The workplace must meet all of the following three criteria:

1. Address Healthy Working Lives in the workplace:

• set up a Healthy Working Lives working group
• identify and support staff roles and responsibilities
• plan and record staff training in health and safety.

2. Assess safety and health needs in the workplace:

• undertake a health needs assessment for staff and prepare an action plan
• develop an occupational health and safety action plan.

3. Raise awareness of Healthy Working Lives:

• provide information and activities, prioritised on the findings from the health needs assessment, health and safety action plan, or from any other relevant sources
• implement a policy on smoking and provide access to smoking cessation support.

Additional criteria
The workplace must choose to undertake TWO of the following five criteria:

1. Healthy eating: Promote access to healthier food choices
2. Support staff attendance: Identify why staff may have difficulty attending work
3. Mentally healthy workplaces: Provide information and raise awareness around mental health and well-being issues, including stress
4. Avoid accidents in the workplace: Encourage workplaces to report and act on accidents, incidents and ‘near misses’ to reduce injuries and lost time
5. Health and the environment: Encourage workplaces to raise awareness of their impact on the wider environment.

View more information on the Bronze Award Criteria.

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Silver Award

Before progressing to a Silver Award, the workplace must have fulfilled and maintained the criteria for the Bronze Award.

It should also incorporate benchmarking of Healthy Working Lives performance against other organisations or departments, and the sharing of good practice.

Core criteria
The workplace must meet all of the following criteria:

1. Introduce a policy on alcohol and drugs, and statements of intent on healthy eating and physical activity:

• implement a workplace policy on alcohol and drugs, that includes education about sensible drinking, and counselling support
• introduce statements of intent that promote healthy eating and physical activity.

2. Mentally healthy workplaces:
Plan activity to raise awareness about mental health and well-being issues, including stress in the workplace.

3. Support staff attendance:
Identify why staff may have difficulty attending work, and support staff returning to work.

4. Avoid accidents in the workplace:
Encourage workplaces to report accidents, and to act on incidents and ‘near misses’, to reduce injuries and lost time.

Additional criteria
The workplace must meet ONE of the following criteria:

1. Lifestyle checks: Provide all staff with the opportunity to have one-to-one discussions about their lifestyle, and to identify changes they could make to improve their health
2. Employability: Develop initiatives that enable people to progress towards work, or get into work
3. Promote community health and well-being: Encourage workplaces to strengthen community health and well-being
4. Mentally healthy workplaces: Ensure organisations provide managers with the appropriate skills to improve mental health and well-being in the workplace
5. Health and the environment: Encourage workplaces to reduce their impact on the wider environment.

View more information on the Silver Award Criteria.

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Gold Award

Prepare a three-year strategy and one year rolling action plan
To achieve the Gold Award, organisations must demonstrate that a clear commitment to promoting Healthy Working Lives is an integral part of the business and its development.

A three-year strategy keeps health on the agenda, ensuring that there is a long-term commitment to maintaining and improving health in the workplace, and demonstrating that the work undertaken at Bronze and Silver Award levels is ongoing.

Those criteria not selected while working towards Bronze and Silver levels must now be undertaken and incorporated into the strategy.

In addition, the strategy should incorporate development of a written statement of intent that reflects the organisation’s long-term commitment to protecting the environment.
It should also incorporate benchmarking of your Healthy Working Lives performance against other organisations or departments and the sharing of good practice.

An action plan must also be developed for each year of the strategy to outline activity that will be undertaken. This will ensure that all aspects of Healthy Working Lives are subject to an ongoing process of review and monitoring, enabling adjustments and improvements where necessary.

View more information on the Gold Award Criteria.

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Mental Health and Well-being Commendation Award

An organisation must have achieved the Bronze Award before being eligible for assessment for the Commendation Award.

Mental health is moving up the agenda for employers as growing research demonstrates the importance of mental well-being in relation to our physical health, social inclusion and productivity.

This Commendation Award sets a workplace standard for good practice in promoting positive mental health and well-being, supporting staff with mental health problems in the workplace and reducing barriers to recruiting staff with a history of mental health problems.

Activities undertaken to achieve the Commendation Award can be counted as evidence towards the Healthy Working Lives Bronze, Silver and Gold Awards, and vice versa, where appropriate.

Commendation Award criteria

1. Mental health awareness activities for all staff and specific training for managers
2. Undertake a stress risk assessment, or stress audit and produce an annual action plan to tackle any organisational issues
3. Develop and implement a workplace mental health and well-being policy.

View more information on the Mental Health Award Criteria.

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