ESB’S 7,790 employees enjoy a range of health and wellbeing programmes designed to encourage the development of a healthier lifestyle via the prevention of illness and promotion of good physical and mental health.

The Challenge.

With a strategic focus on empowering employees, ESB began exploring digital wellbeing tools to enable employees proactively manage their wellbeing, both at home and at work. This resource would complement their existing range of well-established internal and external health and wellbeing supports. The solution needed to be; research based, holistic, empowering, and measurable.

The Solution & Success.

ESB identified the Wrkit wellbeing tool POWR in 2017 as the most relevant and best-fitting tool to support their health and wellbeing strategy. The six POWR paths provided a holistic approach that mirrored the various aspects of the existing ESB proactive wellbeing programme.

POWR was identified by ESB as a suitable digital resource to complement our range of established internal and external health & wellbeing supports. POWR supports our strategic focus of empowering our workforce to proactively manage their health & wellbeing.

The clinically validated assessments and behavioural management plans give POWR credibility, while the technical functionality guarantees confidentiality by anonymising user data. Engaging confidentially with POWR enables ESB employees to establish a sense of self-awareness, take ownership of their personal wellbeing and develop resilience.

With a network of 50 Wellbeing Champions across our organisation, POWR creates additional opportunities to drive local activities and discussions by promoting monthly workplace challenges. These challenges align with our annual monthly calendar of health & wellbeing related themes, which are also communicated in our internal monthly wellbeing bulletin.

Before officially launching POWR to 6,540 employees in October 2017 engagement goals and objectives were outlined. In order to position POWR for success these goals were accompanied by a well-defined strategy as well as training and educating of key ESB stakeholders including internal EAP supports, senior management teams, the networks of internal wellbeing champions and the existing external wellbeing providers. Following an onsite launch event with Wrkit’s Dr. Ian Gargan, initial engagement numbers by December 2017 exceeded 800. By April 2018, six months after launching, the ESB had over 1,500 employees registered with POWR, on track to meet the year one registration target of 2100.

The data generated by POWR in the first six months has reaffirmed our understanding of our health promotion activities and provides an opportunity to look at specific areas of wellbeing to focus on within ESB.

ESB’s proactive programmes support employees in reaching their full potential. In these challenging times, looking after employee health has never been more important, and ESB prides itself in supporting employees in dealing with these challenges and minimising the impact on their wellbeing. POWR enables our employees to take control of their wellbeing and complements the other activities that take place in Health & Wellbeing across the organisation.