The Wates Group is one of the largest family-owned construction, development and property services companies in the UK with an annual turnover of £2.18B.
There is rightly an increasing focus on mental health and wellbeing in the Construction industry. Rising suicide rates, tight budgets and pressure to act now are leading organisations to rethink their duty of care for the workforce.
Wates, as a market leader, invited their sub-contractors to each provide a wellbeing initiative to promote engagement, awareness and meaningful action around this topic. Fit for Work was asked to provide a solution to help identify the underlying factors influencing wellbeing on site together which simultaneously involved and supported everyone across the whole workforce.
Fit for Work was invited to a Wates site by Design Rationale to host a Wellbeing Cabin. Facilitated by a certified Mental Health First Aider, the cabin comprised interactive activities designed to promote workforce engagement, raise awareness of mental health, gather feedback and provide access to wellbeing resources. During the course of the day, approximately 100 site staff visited to take part in the various activities going on in the room including a shoot-the-hoop competition with individual and team prizes, snacks, drinks and takeaway mental health resources. Importantly, there was also an opportunity to speak privately with an independent Mental Health First Aider (MHFA) for anyone who felt they needed assistance with a specific issue.
Engagement was high with workers representing sixteen different roles from a total of seven different organisations across the supply chain. Feedback relating to the workers’ experience on site as well as their general state of mind was collected both digitally and verbally. MHFA was given as and when required.
Anonymous feedback gathered using the Fit for Work app was aggregated and reported back to site leadership - identifying key themes currently affecting the workforce. Not only did these insights provide an unprecedented understanding of workforce needs, they also presented Wates and their subcontractors on site with the opportunity to support their workforces in a way which was tailored to those needs - building a culture of inclusivity by giving every worker a voice.
By continuing to work with Fit for Work, Wates will be able to measure and benchmark wellbeing across projects, shifts and the industry as a whole - measuring seasonal and project related influences throughout the lifecycle of each project.