Customer Success Stories - NHS Health Education and Improvement Wales
Challenges of working in the NHS and the importance of offering staff benefits
Client background
Health Education and Improvement Wales (HEIW) was formed in 2018, at HEIW, the wellbeing of its staff is one of their top priorities. As the Head of Wellbeing at Work, Claire Smith is responsible for objectives that support the health and wellbeing of approximately 600 staff.
The HEIW Approach: Prioritising Health and Support
“We are committed to focusing on the things we can do to support our staff,” Claire says. “At HEIW, we understand that our staff health and wellbeing is fundamental to be able to support the wider NHS Wales family, and therefore, we are committed to doing everything we can to support them.”
HEIW offers a national portal called - Gwella HEIW Leadership Portal for Wales and a HEIW website where staff health and wellbeing resources are housed and signposted. HEIW partnered with Health Shield to provide a health cash plan for staff, which offers discounts, benefits, and perks to maximise the value of staff take-home pay.
Watch the video below
HEIW offers staff valuable benefits through a health cash plan for everyday healthcare services
HEIW is an exemplar employer with a strategic aim to showcase and lead by example through NHS Wales on how to treat staff and demonstrate that staff wellbeing is important.
“So even though we can't necessarily affect their take home pay, how they spend their pay and the discounts they have, we can do that. So this is something that we were really keen on doing in HEIW, especially with the cost of living crisis.”
Claire Smith,
Head of Wellbeing at Work
HEIW prioritises staff wellbeing, explores financial support options
Claire continues to explore more ways to support the staff at HEIW. “We also understand that financial wellbeing is just as important as physical and mental wellbeing.”
“I'm really proud of the fact that we can offer these benefits to our staff. We've got an intranet site where we put them all on, where they can access, and we have an excellent comms team that help us to share and raise awareness of all these resources.”
Claire Smith,
Head of Wellbeing at Work
“This is why we are looking to partner with credit unions in Wales and the UK to offer our staff financial support through payroll deduction,” Claire says.
“We are proud to be an exemplar employer, and we will continue to prioritise the wellbeing of our staff in everything we do.”