Foyle Food Group lifts national excellence award

North West company Foyle Food Group scooped the Towers Perrin Healthy Workplaces Award at the annual Business in the Community Awards for Excellence at London’s Royal Albert Hall last night (Monday, July 7). 

The judges were impressed by the investment Foyle Food Group were making in their people, despite the tight margins they are operating within.
The improvements they had seen, such as the reduction in insurance premiums and reduction in accidents, clearly demonstrated the business case for investing in employee health.

Their pro-active approach ensured everyone within the business received a health check including their 400 plus migrant workers. As a result they are recognising and developing solutions to the differing health challenges facing employees in different roles.

Health Partnerships

Work with partners such as Action Cancer and Chest, Heart & Stroke to target key problems and translate materials is helping to ensure positive health messages are being heard by employees’ friends and families.

Foyle Food Group’s Health & well-being programme includes pre-employment health screening for new staff and annual medicals for existing staff, available to all its 840 employees. By monitoring staff, the company is able to identify individual health risk and lifestyle factors that may have an impact on staff and help reduce risk and workplace related illnesses.
                                                                                                                                  
With half of its staff migrant workers, Foyle Food Group also translated its health awareness programme into Russian, Polish & Portuguese and this has now been rolled out across Northern Ireland.

High Praise

Stephen Howard, Chief Executive of Business in the Community said: "I am delighted that Foyle Food Group has won the Towers Perrin Healthy Workplaces Award. Their success in addressing such a vital issue is paramount to good business.

“Without a healthy workforce you cannot achieve anything and all companies need to learn how to maximize the wellbeing of their employees." 

Phoenix Natural Gas was also highly commended at the national awards, in the Impact on Society Award category.