Health & Safety Intranet – UPDATED 2021 – A Complete Guide

​One of the most essential requirements for productivity in an organization is employee health and well-being. Employee wellness is trendy today, with a majority of workplaces taking measures to promote a culture of health, safety, and well-being. Social intranets are a powerful way to support official health and safety programs by encouraging employees to live a healthy lifestyle, thereby boosting productivity and bottom-line.

In this guide, we discuss how your intranet can help promote employee health and safety in the workplace.

Health and Safety Intranet – UPDATED 2021

​Most organizations already have active health and safety programs for employees, but a vast majority of the workforce is unaware that they exist. The HR teams often encounter strict budgets, resulting in scattered efforts, lower employee engagement, and thereby, limited outcomes.

Such companies require nurturing a culture of wellness among employees through social intranet which offers a natural channel to promote such programs. Company intranets most likely have all the essential functionality to support wellness and safety efforts. You simply need to promote the site and engage the employees.

To make the health and safety section easily discoverable, consider including links in the navigation of the site. Label the section clearly and use tagging option to make the content searchable. Make sure you present the information clearly within the section. Here are some important topics you should cover:

• -Information about safety in the workplace and working from home
• -Services available, like a gym membership, help with quitting smoking, etc.
• -Wellness tips like the importance of taking breaks and sitting properly at the desk
• -Tips on general health, well-being, and lifestyle
• -Information about whom to contact with any questions

Building a dedicated section about wellness on your digital platform shows the employees how important employee health and safety is for your organization. These sections improve the visibility of your wellness programs and promote awareness among the employees while giving them easy access to resources. 

Health Care Audits – A Complete Guide

Health and wellness audits are valuable at assessing where your organization stands on its path to employee health and safety and what the potential barriers look like. An audit helps discover the aspects of your workplace culture that may interfere with the existing wellness programs. It also proves to be effective at guiding the actions of your wellness team, make the workplace supportive of healthy behaviors, improve the overall culture and spark new life into the strategy.

Here are some of the indispensable components of a health care audit. 

Assessment

​ The first step in an internal health care audit involves gathering information. This should include conducting focus groups, interviewing stakeholders, surveying employees, and reviewing internal documents to evaluate the workplace culture and assess the present scenario about health and wellness.

Analysis 

​ The next step is to identify weak spots and potential holes. Also, check what the management and employees find important. A detailed questionnaire should help record the responses. Organizations can also use one of the analysis methods to discover the strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities.

Recommendation

​ Once the information is collected and results reviewed, a summary of findings is prepared and presented to the senior management. The recommendations are reviewed and changes are prioritized based on their impact on the programs.

Health & Wellbeing Intranet

​The simplest way to use the company intranet to promote wellness is to create a dedicated section on the site with videos and content aimed at educating employees about a healthy lifestyle. This part of the intranet can contain nutrition tips, quick workout videos, workplace ergonomics, and anything else that boosts health and wellness.

However, content alone can not effectively encourage employees to make effort. Consider adding news feeds, news buttons, daily tips on pages, or a daily digest through email to catch employee attention. Update the home page or department pages with news and updates from this section and include a link back to the main page of the site.

The content can be set up to curate automatically based on category preferences and job positions to make it easy for them to acquire relevant information. Moreover, each piece of content related to health and wellness provides an opportunity to remind them of relevant benefits and inform them about changes to the wellness policy. 

Recreation & Wellness On The Intranet

While creating content about employee health and wellness is critical, it is only half the story. Your ultimate goal is to get employees involved in different health-related activities, whether as a part of an existing wellness program or a standalone event.

As intranets support communities, they are a great place to encourage recreational activities. You can easily create a community site on the intranet dedicated to cycling, running, baseball, swimming, or any other sport.

This type of community site would allow employees to make connections, share their experiences and organize themselves. You can even have a dedicated site where employees can share success stories, recipes, and health tips to inspire and help fellow workers.

Intranets are also valuable at supporting events and competitions promoting a culture of health and wellness. You could organize anything from a simple dance session per week to a fully featured organization-wide sports program.

Use a calendar to inform people of the dates for events and use the news to publicize the event and share updates on it during and after the event. Badges and game-related achievements can be strong motivators for healthy employee behaviors. Employees can also use the intranet features to create personal wellness plans and stick to their targets. They can even share feedback and photos after events right on the intranet. 

Smart Goals For Employee Engagement

​Engaging employees with your purpose can support your goals by reminding them how their efforts matter. While the health and safety efforts through intranet target those who care, an organization should also try to reach employees with a limited interest in a healthy lifestyle. HR managers can run intranet-based surveys with wellness experts and share the facts and recommendations with others.

When these employees learn that most of their colleagues are already reaping the benefits for their well-being from these corporate activities, they are more likely to engage in the program. Quick surveys can help understand the reasons for poor engagement and take appropriate actions. Social intranets also help reduce workforce stress by facilitating connections between individuals with like interests.

If the intranet is accessible from outside the premises, it can allow flexible working from remote locations. Giving employees a choice of where they want to work from not only promotes engagement but also improves work-life balance for those who need to take care of their family members. 

Conclusion

Intranets are valuable resources, making a meaningful contribution to organizations. They can be good starting points at promoting health and safety among employees. The outcomes of these efforts not only depend on the features of the platform but also on how these features are used to nurture the well-being of the employees. With proper technology in place, it should be easy to succeed at a health and safety intranet for a more productive workforce.