Ahead of the recession, corporate responsibility established itself as an intrinsic business principle, and instead of falling victim to the market, it has demonstrated its value to business. A key part of the overall CR proposition is employee health and wellbeing. We have invested heavily in our people this year as part of our award winning CR strategy.

We launched our new voluntary benefits programme, ‘Your Benefits’, which was designed specifically for the tougher economic environment to make a real difference to everyday life and expenses. 

The programme incentivises front line employees with discount shopping vouchers, days out, holidays to suit all budgets, gym membership and healthcare plans, amongst others.  Staff can save up to £1,000 if fully utilised. It's important to us that our staff feel supported during these difficult times and part of our responsibility is to enable them to make healthier choices such as joining a gym, which might not have been feasible before.

So far, there has been 41% take up of the Personal Hospital Plan and 30% take up of the Voluntary Group Income Protection scheme. The roll out is nearing its completion and to date ARAMARK colleagues have spent nearly £20,000, taking advantage of the great discounts offered. 

We have been pleased with colleague engagement with the Your Benefits scheme, 40% of colleagues are completing the field satisfaction surveys, providing us with critical feedback on what they value within the programme and how we can develop it into the future. We have so far had over 800 hits to the Your Benefits website and as a result of the field satisfaction surveys we know over half of those completing the surveys access the internet at home, really useful information given our workforce.

In addition to this, Your Benefits has expanded the range of colleague help lines available to help make life run smoothly. For example, ARAMARK offers an employee assistance helpline where staff have access to confidential telephone counselling and a legal information service that operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Staff can make use of additional services too, such as:

• The Personal Taxation Service
• Financial and the Mortgage helpline
• Employee Assistance Helpline

However, the benefits package is just one element of the health and wellbeing focus at ARAMARK. We understand that it's important for our staff to have access to schemes which allow them and us as a company to invest in the wider community. We are very actively involved with a number of community programmes. 

As an example, we work with One Water to provide unique PlayPump systems to people in Africa who don’t currently have access to clean drinking water. In fact, we have funded no less than fifteen water systems, which will provide water to over 5,000 children and their families. 

Closer to home, we actively encourage employees to take part in volunteer schemes.  Part of the ARAMARK ‘Building Communities’ project involves employees working with local community centres to improve leisure facilities for residents. The first UK project took place at Newham’s community centre and playground area. 

Over 100 employees were involved, all contributing their time and labour. It was a huge success, all participants were inspired and the feedback was exceptional. In 2010, the company committed to improving another city park.

An important part of employee health and wellbeing is recognition. We have an extremely talented and hardworking workforce and we encourage each and every person to enter industry awards to highlight their achievements. Most recently one of our chefs won the Contract Catering Chef of the Year award at the Catering in Scotland Excellence Awards and, our HR representative won a Caterer & Hotelkeeper Acorn Award for contributing to the organisation and the industry.

The ARAMARK Offshore team also achieved recognition at the RoSPA Occupational Health and Safety Awards and the prestigious Scottish Offshore Achievement Award. And ARAMARK UK has achieved a whole host of esteemed awards.

Investing in employee wellbeing is an ongoing commitment, it isn’t something which can be viewed as a project, it needs to be a fundamental part of everyday business. We are already looking ahead to 2010 when we will introduce our new intranet that will incorporate a fully functioning health and wellbeing area including healthy recipes and links to helpful tools. 

Despite the recession, health and wellbeing remains high on the corporate agenda and will continue to be a vital part of the strategic retention and attraction plan for the company.