CCSO19B35 - Provision of a Digital Wellness Platform to Cabinet Office

Description

REQUIREMENT The Cabinet Office (which may be referred to as 'the Authority' hereafter) is committed to fostering a culture that promotes physical and mental health and the social and financial wellbeing of its workforce. The late Lord Jeremy Heywood, former Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service, established a staff network dedicated to employee wellbeing in 2012. The Workwell Network was run by a group of volunteers who met regularly to raise awareness of staff wellbeing and resilience. Over a six year period, the group built momentum around topics, such as the working environment, relationship-building, productivity and job satisfaction. The Network established an annual staff health and wellbeing survey and initiated a number of support services, including a listening service run by trained volunteers. In October 2014, the Authority signed the "Time to Change" pledge to demonstrate its commitment to change how it thinks and acts about mental health in the workplace and ensures that its staff feel supported if they have mental ill health. The Network's achievements were recognised in 2018, when the Authority integrated staff health and wellbeing into its HR function and created a dedicated full-time post to implement and support the Network's recommendations. In November 2018, the Authority launched its "Approach to Wellbeing" strategy. This included mental health, physical activity, social and financial wellbeing. Based on data about the Authority's staff, the strategy outlined three key priorities. These are: Ways of Working - equipping our people with a great working environment, the right tools, resources and flexible support to build a happy and healthy workforce. Healthy You - ensuring our people take responsibility for their own health and wellbeing. We see our people holistically, as whole individuals, and we understand that they will face a variety of challenges throughout their time at work. Visible Leaders and Capable Managers - prioritising the health and wellbeing agenda at a senior leadership level and visibly demonstrating through their actions that it is a Cabinet Office priority. Leaders and managers will be held accountable for the wellbeing of their teams through revised performance management steps. In addition to the holistic strategy, the Cabinet Office also launched a specific mental health action plan in January 2019. This was a positive way to respond to the 3800 working days lost due to mental ill health in 2018, which is the equivalent of 11% of all recorded sickness absence. To support the action plan and wider strategy, the Cabinet Office is looking to introduce a digital wellness platform that enables staff to track and improve their own mental and physical wellbeing in areas such as stress, anxiety, focus and sleep. The full specification can be found in the Attachment 3 - Statement of Requirements.