Santander Partners with The Leadership Academy of Barcelona to Promote Health and Well-Being to More Than 200,000 employees

Barcelona, Monday, April 16, 2018. Santander Bank has chosen The Leadership Academy of Barcelona (LAB), to support “BeHealthy”, an employee health and well-being initiative which will be rolled out to Santander’s entire workforce of more than 200,000 employees based in Europe, North and South America, and Asia.

Targeting employees in offices in major cities in Brazil, Poland, the U.S., the U.K, Spain and elsewhere, Santander’s “BeHealthy” will make use of all the resources included in the LAB’s Sustaining Executive Performance (SEP) programme. Santander’s “BeHealthy” was presented with the LAB’s new materials last week during the bank’s annual “BeHealthy Week”, which raises awareness of the importance of health and wellbeing among its employees.

SEP will help form the basis of Santander’s bid to become one of the world’s healthiest companies.

Developed by the LAB in 2010, SEP is a comprehensive programme geared to promoting healthier habits in the workplace and beyond, which in turn drives sustainable performance and value, both professionally and personally. Drawing on a confluence of ancient wisdom, including Greek and Chinese philosophy, innovative business cases and emerging research, SEP demonstrates how the often-forgotten premise of mens sana in corpore sano (a sound mind in a sound body) can be an actionable business strategy for the 21^st century professional. Originally conceived for executives, it has since been applied to everyone in the workplace, irrespective of job title, and recognising the great pressures we all have these todays to manage work and life.

The deal will see Santander deploy and customize all of the SEP content across its offices. This content includes an online course of more than 30 videos, practical exercises for employees and readings. In addition, there is a customised eBook published by Pearson and nudge posters will be deployed around offices to help sustain behavioural change in the workplace.

Santander committed to becoming the healthiest company in the world

The bank’s “BeHealthy” programme to drive a healthy, balanced and structured approach in the workplace is backed by Global HR Director, Roberto di Bernardini. This month sees the Santander annual “BeHealthy Week” aimed at raising awareness among employees. The Sustainable Executive Performance Programme will, he says, have a key role to play in igniting this initiative and bringing it to life across the bank’s workforce in all of its geographies.

"We're passionate about making Santander one of the healthiest companies in the world, with BeHealthy a key part of our company mission to help people and business prosper. We needed high quality material that had a track record of impact and we are delighted to work with the Leadership Academy of Barcelona on customising their transformative Sustaining Executive Performance program, which all 202,000 employees will have access to off and online."

Dr. Steven MacGregor, CEO of the Leadership Academy Barcelona said: “This agreement marks a highly significant commitment from Santander to driving the well-being of its workforce. The scale of the initiative is a first for us also. The online nature of the programme delivery means that we are able to extend reach and impact exponentially.”

"We've been lucky enough to deliver Sustaining Executive Performance to over 20,000 people face-to-face the past seven years, which has allowed us to develop a rich material base and understand what works in changing peoples’ behaviour and improving their health and happiness at work. Customising the existing material with a client who are committed to health at work has been a true privilege, and the exposure to such a very large number of people is very exciting," he adds.