Written by: Hannah Willis, Director of Internal Comms and Engagement at Vitality.
Vitality was named as one of the top 10 Best Places to Work in The Sunday Times Best Places to Work, powered by WorkL.
At Vitality, everything we do is driven by our core purpose: to make people healthier, and to enhance and protect their lives.
We’re passionate about wellbeing and committed to helping our employees (and members) lead happy and healthy lives. When we liberate the best in them, they flourish, become brand advocates, and serve our members brilliantly.
This is our Shared Value Model in action: it’s good for our employees and members, good for our business, and good for society.
Our wellbeing strategy
Our wellbeing strategy enjoys strong leadership support, and comprises five pillars: physical wellbeing, mental wellbeing, financial wellbeing, lifestyle, and social wellbeing. It is informed by multiple data sources, including employee feedback, which shape a year-round series of campaigns and initiatives.
Every employee gets Vitality’s private medical insurance cover, including the Vitality Programme, which helps them understand their health through regular health checks, and encourages them to take steps to improve their health, rewarding them with a range of benefits when they do. In our most recent employee experience survey, 72% of employees said that the Vitality Programme had inspired them to make positive lifestyle changes.
Physical wellbeing
Other initiatives to promote physical wellbeing include on-site run clubs, regular lunchtime runs and walks led by leaders, fitness classes, and free entry to sponsored events like the Vitality 10,000 run. In our latest annual ‘Steptember’ challenge, our employees clocked a total of more than 274 million steps.
Employees can access support to start their own internal sports clubs and invite others to get involved through the Make it Happen Fund — £15,000 has been donated since we introduced this initiative in 2023.
Mental wellbeing
A foundation of psychological safety is vital to employee wellbeing, and we strive to create an environment where employees can talk openly and honestly about their emotional and mental wellbeing.
We provide managers with mental health awareness training and a comprehensive toolkit, and have a network of 47 trained mental health champions at all our sites. Employees can also access free talking therapy services, discounted mindfulness apps, and our employee assistance programme.
Shining the spotlight on mental health through regular campaigns has encouraged more employees to seek help when they need it. Showcasing employee stories has been a powerful tool for unlocking conversations and reducing the stigma that too often attaches to mental health issues.
Financial wellbeing
We offer employees access to a range of financial wellbeing services, including workshops aimed at helping them lead financially fit lives, free mortgage advice, a car-pooling scheme, an electric vehicle purchase scheme, and debt consolidation services.
During the cost of living crisis, we topped up the salaries of our lowest earning employees. We are also an accredited Real Living Wage employer.
Lifestyle
An integral part of our wellbeing strategy is to empower our employees to make healthy choices at work. Employees enjoy free healthy breakfasts, lunches, and fruit.
Employees can also sign up for support to quit smoking.
Social wellbeing
Our on-site restaurants and lounges are a hive of social activity. Executives meet with every new hire, and senior leaders host regular meetings of our virtual book club. Our employee volunteering programme features quarterly campaigns that enable staff to connect, collaborate, and give back to the community.
Personalisation
Increasingly we are adopting a more personalised approach to wellness. Recently we implemented a type 2 diabetes reversal trial with a cohort of 10 employees that featured clinical and lifestyle support. Our ‘Move More’ campaign was targeted at staff who were physically inactive. Employees who volunteered to participate in these initiatives reacted positively.
Last year, we made support services available to employees with ADHD, giving them access to specialist educational content and virtual coaching. We also offer free medical diagnosis and treatment to employees with autism and ADHD.
Making our offices great places to be
The post-pandemic shift to hybrid working prompted us to reinvent our office spaces in ways that foster connection, collaboration, creativity, and learning. We moved to new offices in Bournemouth and London which are designed to give employees choices about how and where they work when they’re at the office, including spaces to relax. As a result, compliance with our hybrid working policy has never been an issue.
Top 10 Best Places to work
We believe that our concerted focus on creating a healthy and happy workplace played a significant role in us being named recently by the Sunday Times as one of the top 10 best places to work (very big organisation) in the UK. And we’re committed to continually enhancing the employee experience at Vitality to retain that status.
