Receiving Healthy Workplace Award reassures us that we’re on the right track

Susan Hutton is London Sport’s Director of Finance, People & Governance, with responsibility for London Sport’s employee workforce. On Monday night, she collected the London Healthy Workplace Award – Foundation Level on behalf of the organisation at City Hall.

Active is what we believe. Active is what we do.

Those two lines from our We Are Not Spectators film sum up one of the things that makes London Sport such a special place to work.

I see first-hand how passionately London Sport staff believe in our mission to make London the world’s most active city and how much effort it will take for us to succeed.

We want the entire city to enjoy the huge benefits that being physically active brings – from improvements to physical health and mental health to enhanced social wellbeing, social integration and so many more things.

And because we know how powerful those benefits can be, we know instinctively that, as employers, it is important to support our own staff to access those benefits in their place of work.

That’s why I was extremely proud to collect a London Healthy Workplace Award for London Sport on Monday night – our staff’s workplace health is a key pillar of the London Sport strategy.

The evidence behind our decision to focus on this is overwhelming.

In the second Active Citizens Worldwide report, which was released earlier this month, we learned that employers benefit to an enormous degree from physical activity, to the tune of 3.2 million sick days prevented across the four ACW cities (London, Auckland, Singapore and Stockholm) thanks to physical activity.

And, in London, those who are active are, on average, 5% happier than inactive people and 3% more trusting of others around them.

So, not only will an active workforce be healthier in their daily lives, but they’ll be happier people too – two key factors which can help boost productivity and business morale.

Of course, as with physical health, we know that for mental wellbeing, while physical activity can make an important contribution, it is not a one-size-fits-all solution that solves all issues on its own.

That’s why we were delighted that some of the initiatives we put in place to create an environment that supports employee mental and physical health, including our Best Place To Work group, the great range of activities available for employees and our recognition programme were all highlighted in the decision to recognise London Sport as a Healthy Workplace.

And because London Sport is an active organisation, we won’t be stopping there. There is always more to do around topics like healthy eating, alcohol awareness and further training.

Receiving an award like this is a great way of reassuring us that we’re on track, and that’s a reassurance that we also want to provide to others too.

So, in the New Year, it’ll be our turn to recognise some of the incredible work by partners and others in all 33 boroughs of the capital as we host the fifth annual London Sport Awards.

The Awards cover all elements of physical activity and sport from community impact to workforce, volunteering to young people and offers a chance for people making a difference to Londoners’ lives through grassroots sport to show that they’re making a real difference – just as the Healthy Workplace Award has helped confirm our commitment to making a difference in our employees’ lives.

Find out more about the London Sport Awards here, and the Healthy Workplace Award scheme here.