Sharp’s Brewery has won a gold award for its dedication to improving staff health and wellbeing.
The award, in the Cornwall Healthy Workplace Awards, recognises a range of in-house initiatives, including sleep hygiene training, life leave, and a mental health first aiders programme.
The award is a standard of good practice and a quality mark of health and wellbeing in the workplace. Its aim is to act as a toolkit to encourage all employers to think about different ways to improve the health and wellbeing of their team members.
Sharp’s Brewery achieved a considerably high score against all nine of the criteria, from health and safety and musculoskeletal health, to balanced eating.
The award judges particularly highlighted the brewer’s creation of a new Health and Wellbeing Week, and the continual support, care, and commitment given to the team throughout the coronavirus crisis.
Like many businesses, the pandemic has had a profound impact on Sharp’s Brewery with production having to decrease significantly during various stages of lockdown while pubs were forced to close. The majority of the team were furloughed, but the company remained committed to keeping in regular contact with the team through weekly updates with a clear focus on health and wellbeing.
Sharp’s team members were encouraged to participate in the Brewery to Beyond physical activity challenge of completing 1,000km in 60 days, and to share their photos of fun activities or happenings during their time on furlough.
Moment that Matter
Sharp’s has also trained up 12 mental health first aiders in the last year, so there are now 14 in total across the business, supporting individuals during all hours.
A Moments that Matter programme has seen the introduction of life leave, providing ten days’ leave per year for staff to use instead of using their holiday entitlement. This is for things like moving house and ‘summer hours’, which enable staff to work more flexibly over the summer months to enjoy the warmer weather and beautiful surroundings.
Free Fruit Friday was introduced during the Health and Wellbeing Week. All company managers have completed ‘training enabling them to support their staff more effectively, and shift workers have taken sleep hygiene training courses to help them develop healthier habits and routines.
Junior HR business partner at Sharp’s Brewery, Nina Griggs, said: “We are absolutely delighted to have won this gold award for our continued dedication to the wellbeing of our team, especially given the challenges of the past 12 months.
“Wellbeing is so important at the best of times, and can be really fragile, particularly during these unprecedented times. Our team is the lifeblood of the company and we’re always considering creative and innovative ways in which we can elevate employees’ quality of life.
“The feedback from the work we have done has been phenomenal, the changes have really made a difference to peoples’ lives, which is wonderful. It is fantastic to be recognised for this.”
