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Case Study: Danone

Danone developed its Active Health Programme as part of the company's 'People Acceleration Unit' in 2004. The company was motivated by its desire to be consistent with its values, which put people first as well as being passionate about health and nutrition. Danone also wanted to be consistent with its position on health in the consumer market.

The guiding principle of the Active Health Programme is to provide a holistic approach to an individual's health in the workplace, which it does under the headings: Work, Life, Health and Food. As the programme is principally funded by Danone, there is no barrier to usage.

As well as providing an actively supportive approach to healthy living, the programme is also available, where applicable, to employees' families. It has been developed in conjunction with employees via surveys, workshops and ideas testing.

There are a number of employee 'ambassadors for health' in the workplace, who not only have a good understanding and knowledge of the company's brands, but who also ensure that the Active Health Programme is always appropriate to the current needs of the workforce via a yearly review of the activities. In 2010, free weekly yoga classes were introduced in addition to the complimentary on-site massages and the daily supply of bottled mineral water, fresh fruits and yoghurts.

Danone has looked at the four areas of workplace health – Work, Life, Health and Food – and re-positioned some suppliers and services under the Active Health brand, as well as performing an audit of HR policies to ensure they support the Active Health approach. It also looked at new policies and thinking, such as flexible benefits and ways of working, while enlisting the ambassadors to challenge thinking.

Some components of the programme are:

• Work: an inspiring office environment, flexible benefits, flexible working practices
• Life management: massages, an employee assistance programme, stress training for all
• Health: free health checks, flu injections and fitness baseline testing, Bikes4work scheme
• Food: diet and nutrition training, free fruit, yoghurt and bottled mineral water, 'fat-buster' scheme

One of the most obvious indicators of the success of the Active Health Programme has been the announcement of Danone as the winner of the 2008 Employee Benefits Award for the most effective healthcare and wellbeing strategy.

More Information

FDF has published a booklet called Workplace Wellbeing: The Food Industry in Action (pdf, 984kb) which features many workplace wellbeing schemes .

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