Health and Wellbeing

Long Road Sixth Form College is committed to providing a positive, encouraging working environment, one that is healthy, safe and supportive. Our wellbeing strategy aims to promote staff wellbeing across all aspects of college life. We recognise our talented staff are our greatest asset.

The 2021 staff survey showed that 95% of respondents rated Long Road as a great place to work.

Wellbeing is ‘a state of mind in which an individual is able to realise his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community.’ World Health Organisation 2014.

The Health and Wellbeing stategy aims to:

• Embed health & wellbeing across all college practice
• Involve everyone in strategy development and evaluation
• Make best use of the resources available
• Ensure actions lead to long-term, sustainable improvements in the health and wellbeing of the Long Road staff community

Our Aims and Objectives

Our central College mission is to enable our students to achieve the very best they can and to support them to progress. To achieve this we need a highly skilled, motivated team. We are also committed to being an employer of choice. We recognise that the promotion and maintenance of the physical/psychological health and wellbeing of our staff community is vital if we are to achieve our goals.

The central aim of the Health and Wellbeing Strategy is to prevent work associated ill health and to create and maintain a culture of wellbeing, where staff feel valued, achieve job satisfaction and are successful. These aims are also championed through both the College’s Development Plan and HR Strategy.

Principles for Success

To enable our health and wellbeing strategy to be successful, we need a shared understanding of what wellbeing is and why it is important to Long Road.Leaders and managers across our organisation must role model wellbeing behaviours. We must provide timely access to relevant services and resources to staff.

We should empower staff to take ownership of their own wellbeing and provide time, training and resources to do so, and demonstrate the value of wellbeing to the Long Road community.

The following principles underpin our approach;

• Values based leadership
• Effective change management and careful planning – providing colleagues with sufficient notice and ensuring any new initiatives are thoroughly reviewed and assessed against a workload impact
• Workload scrutiny – regular (at least annual) review and adjustment of staff workload
• A developmental professional review process (PRD)
• Regular, open dialogue and feedback through consultative groups such as JUMCC, staff meetings, team meetings, staff surveys, focus groups, Corporation meetings/visits
• Equipping managers to better lead and support their teams, including health and wellbeing and staff satisfaction
• Providing an occupational health and wellbeing service that is focussed on prevention
• Implementing a clear and supportive sickness absence and attendance policy

Implementation

The College Wellbeing Strategy will be used to improve the wellbeing of our staff, and will look at 4 key areas:

• Building, improving and maintaining a positive and supportive working/learning environment
• Embedding wellbeing in our HR policies and people practices
• Creating a culture where more people feel able to talk openly about their mental health as they do physical health. Encouraging and supporting staff to maintain good mental health and manage problems should they arise
• Encouraging and promoting healthy lifestyles

The Implementation of the strategy will involve a review of what Wellbeing initiatives the College currently offers and increasing the provisions and benefits available to Staff.

Measuring Success

The successful implementation of the strategy will see:

• Increased participation in the staff survey
• Staff survey analysis (and other focus group feedback) as an indicator of organisational wellbeing
• The take up of wellbeing initiatives
• Reduction in the incidences of and number of days lost annually due to short term sickness absence
• Monitoring referrals and where appropriate outcomes of Occupational Health and Wellbeing and our Employee Assistance Programme
• Reviewing of all relevant HR data

The Rainbow Flag Award

The Rainbow Flag Award is a quality assurance framework with a focus on positive LGBT+ inclusion, for all schools and colleges. We effectively implement The Rainbow Flag Award to meet legal, statutory, moral and Ofsted requirements to be LGBT+ inclusive.

DFE Workload Pledge

Long Road Sixth Form College have signed up to the DFE Wellbeing charter. Signing up to the charter is a public commitment to actively promote mental health and wellbeing through policy and practice. It is a way to show current and prospective staff that our college is dedicated to improving and protecting their wellbeing. Whilst the charter is voluntary, it shows our shared commitment to protect, promote and enhance the wellbeing of our staff.

Vision 2022 and Beyond

Our community will be one where colleagues feel safe, are able to share concerns and have gained further strategies to manage their own wellbeing.

Our goal is for everyone to feel valued for their contribution to Long Road, encouraged and supported to be the best they can be and collectively, we provide a brilliant student experience.