Case Study: Mars UK

After the successful involvement in the National Well@Work project, Mars decided to continue with the momentum behind the project and implement its own in-house workplace health programme called Winning With Wellness.

Mars - National well@Work projectThe programme aims to provide all employees with opportunities to be informed about their health and help them make choices about how to lead healthier lifestyles.

Through various interventions, they now have access to more information about their health; opportunities to try new health activities, and support to change or maintain their lifestyle behaviours.

The programme is managed by the Wellness Leader – a newly created role – and supported by Wellness Champions, who are employees involved in planning and delivering interventions, as well as senior management.

Based on the evaluation data from the Well@Work project, and input from employee consultation groups, the programme covers:

  • Healthy eating and weight management, such as weight loss competitions, subsidised healthy eating offers in cafeteria, and nutrition newsletters
  • Physical activity in the newly built exercise studio with five classes per week, step challenge, and lunchtime walks Stress management including AXA stress awareness days, the Galaxy 'Chill out' room with self-help leaflets, and subsidised massage
  • Smoking cessation including No Smoking Day activity and on-site one-to-one support
  • Other activities such as the Wellness Champions and the health checks

Monitoring and evaluation are integral to this programme, and the main methods used are employee opinions and comments, case studies and questionnaires.

At the heart of Mars' business is a set of principles that define the culture. Two of these principles are mutuality and responsibility, and Mars believes that the Winning With Wellness project is synonymous with these two principles. Mars is committed to making its company a great place to work.

Winner of a bronze Workplace Wellbeing 2008 Community Partnership Award

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More Information

FDF has published a booklet called Workplace Wellbeing: The Food Industry in Action - pdf | 1.2Mb, which features many of the schemes found in this section.

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Last reviewed: 22 Jan 2009