Evaluation of the Outcomes for Employers Participating in the Corporate Health Standard and Small Workplace Health Award - Final report

In October 2011, the Health Improvement Division of the Welsh Government contracted the Institute for Employment Studies (IES) to conduct an evaluation of outcomes of both the Corporate Health Standard (CHS) and Small Workplace Health Award (SWHA).

These Awards are granted to businesses and organisations that demonstrate that they meet national standards in how they manage staff health and well-being. Different levels of Awards are available (bronze to platinum for the CHS, and bronze to gold for the SWHA).

The Welsh Government owns the rights to the Awards and contracts Public Health Wales (PHW) to deliver them, both in terms of recruiting organisations onto the schemes and supporting organisations during their application. The final assessments for the gold level of the SWHA and all levels of the CHS are carried out by independent assessors subcontracted by the Welsh Government.

The purpose of the evaluation was to look at the outcomes of the Awards in terms of:

• Reduced sickness absence
• Improved employee retention
• Improved engagement and motivation of employees
• Improved company profile.

In addition, the evaluation was tasked with assessing the economic costs for businesses of applying for the Awards and the additional outcomes achieved by applying for a higher level of Award (e.g. from bronze to silver, silver to gold etc.)

Following an evaluation of the CHS conducted by BMG Research in 2008, this evaluation also sought to pilot and, where necessary, revise an online staff survey for continual monitoring of both the CHS and the SWHA.