About the Award

Award Criteria

There are 6 levels to the Award – Foundation, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Continuing Excellence and Maintaining Excellence, with appropriate criteria at each stage to build into an Award Portfolio. Organisations are given up to a year per level, but there is flexibility for those who need it.

Evidence indicates that it takes a period of time to effectively establish the infrastructure that will engage employees in adopting behaviours / lifestyle changes.

This is why ALL employers are required to begin at Bronze and progress systematically upwards through the levels (It is not mandatory to complete the Foundation level before signing up to complete Bronze level - see below). Every employer/ organisation who signs-up to participate in the Award scheme is supported by a dedicated Health Improvement Specialist.

Foundation - a discrete “pre-Bronze” level for any organisations who are new to workplace health and wellbeing or have limited capacity and feel they would benefit from a lighter-touch introduction. It is not mandatory to undertake this before signing up to Bronze.

Bronze - The Bronze level lays a firm foundation to build a healthier workplace.

Silver - The Silver level of the Award builds upon the basics of the Bronze level and rewards organisations that take a more holistic view of the workplace.

Gold - This level builds upon the Silver level and requires companies to look outside their own organisation and promote health within the wider community.

Continuing Excellence - This recognises the importance of organisations sustaining the progress they have made during their participation in the Award and encourages them to use their experience to support others.

Maintaining Excellence - Achieved by employers who have been engaged with the Award for long enough to have achieved a pass at all levels via the completion of a criteria document, portfolio and full workplace assessment.

Ambassador Status - Organisations are eligible for Ambassador Status on achievement of Maintaining Excellence and with the recommendation of their designated Workplace Health Improvement Specialist. This is then passed through to the BHAWA Verification Panel for endorsement.

To continue to embed Health and Wellbeing in our workforce and to promote and support them to lead healthy lifestyles at work and also at home with their families.

The award gives us structure to assist us in our Health & Wellbeing meetings, giving us the resources and knowledge to lead different campaigns and events to help support our workplace. The award supports our Health & Wellbeing Strategy.

- The Banks Group Ltd, Durham

Our Hospice values the health and wellbeing of our staff and volunteers and the award is a fantastic way to be able to formalise our approach and provide a structure and focus to delivering health and wellbeing campaigns to our workforce.

The award has helped us to plan and focus more strategically on our priorities for campaigns and events with regards to health and wellbeing, following the structure provided by the award and with support from our workplace health lead.

- St Cuthbert’s Hospice, Durham

We started the award in 2020 as we were keen to help improve the wellbeing of our employees, particularly post covid. One of our values is putting people first, and we felt like this was a step in the right direction to achieve this.

We now have a team of 10 passionate health advocates to help improve the wellbeing in the office. It’s a great feeling when the office looks forward to the health campaigns and want to be involved. It feels as though the work we’re doing is benefiting our employees.

- Tritility Business Energy Consultants, Sunderland

We participated to provide a further structure, focus and sustainable framework to our wellbeing programme.

The Award offers full support in terms of co-ordinator and resource information including best practice ideas and structured targets to aim for – it feels like we’re working together rather than in a silo!

- Northern Housing Consortium Limited, Sunderland

As a top tier COMAH site our organisation prioritises the health and safety of our people. By equally investing in Health and Wellbeing we can further safeguard our workforce. BHAWA was the obvious choice for us to build on and strengthen our offering in line with our company values.

The framework has provided our business with the tools to understand the wellbeing needs of our rapidly expanding workforce. Through the support of our local coordinator, and collaborating with others, we have been able to develop a more robust health and wellbeing agenda and embed this into our culture.

- Sterling Pharmaceutical Solutions Limited , North Tyneside

We wanted a structured approach to improving the health of employees tapping into the support available and taking the opportunity to benchmark with other organisations to help us improve the health and wellbeing of our people.

The award has been successful in helping us organise dedicated teams and resources as we work through the criteria. So far the campaigns have been very well received by our people and our new Wellbeing strategy has helped us to bring this all together in a framework all our staff understand.

- END. Clothing, Sunderland