Engagement and Wellbeing for our people
8% of Staff trained as mental health first aiders.
66% of Staff are trained in mental health awareness.
40% of Staff participated in health checks.
The Covid pandemic put a spotlight on the responsibility companies must bear for their employees’ wellbeing. At UPP, we took learnings from the initiatives developed during the pandemic and turned this into a fully-fledged wellbeing programme designed to support our people.
It was based on the inclusive principles of staff being themselves, being curious, being active and being mindful. The activities and events covered all areas of health and wellbeing – including nutrition, fitness, sleep, and mindfulness. From recipe sharing to a new fitness platform, we made certain that people could engage at a level comfortable for them. Engagement was excellent, with over 150 members of the team involved in running and supporting initiatives. The initial programme ran for 12 weeks and was considered so successful that it was formalised into an ongoing embedded approach.
Creating a safe and healthy environment
Our goal is to provide healthy, safe, and welcoming homes and places of work for our student residents and our people. We will achieve this by working closely with our university partners, residents, people, and the supply chain. We are committed to the continuous improvement of our health, safety, well-being, environmental, and quality management systems. We have established our Safety, Health, and Environment policy and developed supporting procedures in place for all colleagues, visitors, residents, and others who may be indirectly or directly affected by our business. We also provide mandatory training, instruction, and supervision to all employees and contingent workers to underpin our approach. The training is designed to reduce our organisational risks and comply with local or national policies and government guidelines. Our approach is supported by external accreditation ISO45001:2018.
We have also digitised our Permit to Work system and migrated to a Planon platform. In 2021/22 we reintroduced health check kiosks for our staff, which enabled our people to understand their own health outcomes and challenges. The mental health of our staff and residents remains a priority for UPP. We continue to invest in training UPP employees as mental health first aiders to support peers and students who are living with mental ill health.
Looking ahead
For 2022/23 we have a target to have 15% of our workforce trained as mental health first aiders. In addition, we will also be increasing staff participation in mental health awareness training, with a target that 80% of our staff will have undertaken mental health awareness training by 2022/23. To track the critical issue of belonging (explicitly tied to their wellbeing) of our student residents we will survey them annually on whether they feel part of a residential community and report on this measure each year. This measure will inform our approach and practice to support engagement.
Contact Us
Richard Bolger
Business Development Director
FACILITIES MANAGEMENT
