Background

Danske Bank’s vision is to be the best bank in Northern Ireland for its customers, employees, society and stakeholders. As such employee health and wellbeing is integral to its engagement strategy.

What Danske Bank did

Danske Bank reviewed and revitalised its wellbeing proposition in 2016 by establishing a Wellbeing Committee representing all areas of its business, with a reporting line to senior management.

The following objectives were agreed by the committee:

• Employees thrive and perform at their peak
• Sickness, absence and staff turnover is reduced
• Instances of work related stress are reduced
• Contribute even more to Society

The Senior Management team has given full, public commitment to this initiative and has demonstrated this through:

• volunteering personal and team time for wellbeing (leading volunteering days within their teams and participating in SMT volunteering days; engaging in and encouraging others to becoming involved in wellbeing activities)
• resource (supporting and encouraging team members to volunteer and participate in wellbeing/ fundraising activities and Mental Health awareness training)
• policy (eg Danske Time to Give volunteering policy; comprehensive review of the ED&I suite of policies; flexible working policies; structured performance management processes and significant increase of focus on L&D)
• budget (£500,000 invested in new learning proposition since mid-2016 including allocating budget for mental health training; wellbeing hub, Occupational Health & EAP provision; £ for lb matching for charity partner fundraising)

Danske’s vision has been developed by its Senior Management team and signed-off by its Board, clearly articulating commitment to employees and to wider society. Wellbeing and Employee Engagement are standing agenda items on the company’s quarterly Responsible Business Board meeting.

Impacts and Outcomes

• 772 volunteering hours and £70,000 raised for Action Mental Health enabling 1,450 children and 450 teachers and parents in Northern Ireland to mental health training
• 119 employees were successful for internal roles during 2017
• 54% people managers have received Mindful Manager training
• 4% absence rate at December 2017 (down 0.19% in one year)
• Over 1,000 unique users of Wellbeing hub in 2017 with over 2,000 sessions with employees spending on average 5:15 minutes on the Hub
• SMART programme – supported 4,600 young children from 5 to 17 to become financially confident (150 additional volunteering hours)

For more information, please email david.moore@danskebank.co.uk