The State Claims Agency (SCA), in collaboration with the Health and Safety Authority (HSA), CISM Network Ireland and Employee Wellbeing Ltd., hosted a workshop to engage with organisations who are interested in rolling out the Work Positive CI initiative – a psychosocial risk management process that helps organisations identify ways to improve employee wellbeing.

Workshop overview

The workshop event, which took place on 7th March 2018, gave the 30 attendees an opportunity to learn about Work Positive CI and how it can benefit their organisations. This event also provided a forum for attendees to contribute to the discussion on workplace wellbeing and the important role it plays in mitigating risks and incidents in the workplace, as well as hear from other organisations and their intentions to implement the Work Positive CI process. Attendees were also briefed on the four stages of Work Positive CI, namely Prepare, Measure, Action Plan and Review through presentation material, group discussion and practical exercise activities.

This workshop was targeted at organisations that have signed up and expressed an interest in using the Work Positive CI framework.

Speakers

• Brian Larkin, SCA, looked at how organisations should prepare for Work Positive CI, the key issues involved, and gave some top tips to help organisations ensure that they have good foundations on which to build their Work Positive CI project. Brian also facilitated a practical activity and group discussion session on getting ready for using the framework.
• Robert Kerr, Employee Wellbeing, briefed attendees on how to create a Work Positive CI survey to maximise impact. He briefed attendees on the measurement capabilities of the tool and the key considerations around setting up a survey. Robert also provided a live demo of Work Positive CI and took users through a sample survey.
• Sharon Gallagher, CISM Network Ireland, examined how to review critical incident exposure in the workplace via the Job Content CI audit via a practical demonstration and group activity. Sharon also discussed key workforce outcome indicators and the primary, secondary and tertiary interventions required for stress and critical incident stress management.
• Patricia Murray, Health & Safety Authority, discussed the Action Plan and Review phase, including how to communicate around the development, launch and implementation of the plan, and provided practical tips for organisations to evaluate and review the success rate of the initiatives they introduce based on their findings. Patricia also facilitated a practical activity and group discussion session around how attendees would approach this stage of Work Positive CI.

Work Positive CI – supporting employee wellbeing

Work Positive CI, which launched in March 2017, is a FREE easy to use, innovative, confidential, psychosocial risk management process to help organisations protect the psychological health and safety of workers in occupational groups likely to be exposed to critical incidents at work. The framework provides feedback on workplace stressors, employee psychological wellbeing and critical incident exposure in the workplace. It delivers structured guidance enabling organisations to develop an action plan to mitigate these stressors. Work Positive CI is the first psychosocial risk management framework specific to critical incidents in Europe and incorporates an easy to use online risk assessment tool as part of the four step prepare, measure, action plan and review process which is aligned with the Psychosocial Risk Management European Framework (Prima-EF). Embedding the framework can benefit workplaces in the following ways:

• Reduced absenteeism and turnover
• Reduced workplace stress and critical incident stress
• Reduced occupational health referrals
• Increased employee satisfaction, productivity and overall engagement
• Fewer complaints
• Increased risk awareness
• Reduced claims exposure

To date, around 500 organisations are registered worldwide on the Work Positive CI website. To view Work Positive CI please visit www.workpositive.ie

Work Positive CI is brought to you by the SCA, the HSA, CISM Network Ireland and supported by Employee Wellbeing Ltd.