Rail Leader Update: Supporting a Culture of Health in Rail
The summit was hosted by the Rail Wellbeing Alliance (RWA), which was proud to welcome Huw Merriman MP, Minister of State for Rail and HS2, as keynote speaker. Rail leaders were encouraged to ensure their organisations are properly equipped to protect the health of their employees. The summit showed that not doing so can be costly, with the potential cost of annual days lost per employee being almost £5k. (Read an overview of the event.)
Where there’s an opportunity for rail to improve, RSSB’s cross-industry committees come together to share insights, coordinate activities, and explore and develop solutions. The summit is an excellent example of this, and so is the output Niamh highlights in her health and wellbeing update for rail leaders.
Niamh says: ‘Our workforce is exposed to unique working conditions, shift patterns, challenging demands, and exposure to potentially traumatic events. To ensure workers are adequately supported to be able to safely perform their duties, it is vital for companies to take a structured and evidence-based approach to managing health and wellbeing.’
She adds: ‘While health and wellbeing is often considered at the individual level, more often than not standalone health promotion initiatives fail to deliver any meaningful change in individual behaviour for employee wellbeing. A culture of health should run throughout all rail organisations, to support healthy behaviours at individual, team, and management level.’
The RWA and its subgroups coordinate a variety of health activities across the industry so that legal requirements, cost benefits, and better health provision within organisations can be universally achieved. Niamh shares in the video that the network has developed tools and resources to support rail organisations in this area, including the Railway Mental Health Charter and the Health and Wellbeing Dashboard.
The Rail Leader Update video series, launched last year, keeps rail leaders abreast of the work we do in collaboration with our cross-industry groups to deliver the support rail organisations need.
