We have a good relationship with Validium and like the way they have embraced the challenge of helping us through a tremendous period of change. They communicate well, take on board everything we want and work with us to deliver whatever we require…

Sandra Barker , Relocation Manager , National Air Traffic Services (NATS)

Solutions

Validium combines sector knowledge with clinical expertise to create bespoke solutions, tailored
to the needs of each organisation. Services include….

Reduce Stress

Reducing Working Place Stress

It pays to spot the early warning signs of stress and optimise the mental health of your workforce, as mental health disorders now account for 40% of all days lost through sickness absence. One of the most effective tools you can give your managers is a good understanding of what stress is, how it affects people, and how to spot the warning signs and respond to it early – before the employee reaches crisis point and goes off sick.

Pressure can be a good thing, motivating us to perform and giving us a sense of satisfaction when we succeed. Too little pressure and we become bored and disengaged. The challenge for managers is that individuals have different pressure tolerance levels, with some thriving where others begin to struggle with stress.

The Validium Reduce Stress solution educates managers to recognise the signs that an employee is close to the limit of their ability to handle pressure and provides them with the knowledge and the skills to offer a supportive and co-operative response. The aim isn’t to turn managers into counsellors, but instead to teach them how to identify people in need of help and direct them towards appropriate support, before the problem escalates. Managers quickly see the benefits of a proactive response to stress, for the organisation, for themselves, for their team, and for their individual team members.

For more information, contact Validium.

Deliver Change

Maintain performance throughout change

Employee resistance to change can delay, if not totally derail, organisational change projects. Deliver Change gives you low-cost, high impact support mechanisms to provide employees with the practical and emotional support required for them to deal with and embrace change.

The response of most individuals to change is not dissimilar to that of a bereavement. Initial shock and an unwillingness to accept the news is eventually followed by anger, sadness or anxiety, and finally by acceptance and the desire to make the most of the new situation.

The challenge for employers is to accelerate this process and enable employees to deal with the personal implications of the change, be it restructuring jobs, having to relocate, or change the way they’ve always worked, so that they quickly come to embrace the new situation.

Telephone and online resources can be supplemented with access to specialised counsellors and onsite workshops for managers and employees, equipping them with the tools, insight and support required to take change in their stride and make dramatic changes to their way of working or way of life with confidence.

For more information, contact Validium.

Optimise Vitality

Improve employee health and attendance

The health and ability of your workers to attend and perform at work is one of your most important business drivers. It pays to energise workers and invest in their physical wellbeing, to motivate them to release their full potential. Optimise Vitality leads to a more vitalised and productive workforce, reduced absence, and increased creativity.

We will work with you to create a bespoke package for your organisation after consultation to understand your priorities and share benchmarking data to help you identify which health risks your organisation is at most risk of developing.

Optimise Vitality includes:

A vitality day featuring:

On-site nurse to conduct health screening
Expert nutritionist to give friendly and inspiring advice on eating habits
Backcare specialist to assess individuals’ posture and give guidance
Other specialists to present and advise on issues ranging from drugs and alcohol to mental wellbeing and smoking cessation

Lunchtime seminars – standalone workshops on topics ranging from healthy eating on a budget, to managing stress and anxiety, to what drink and drugs do to the body and mind

Ongoing vitality support – a highly bespoke programme tailored to your organisation’s overall business objectives, including working with senior management to lead genuine culture change and ensure long-term behavioural change.

For more information, contact Validium.
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Minimise Absence

Rehabilitate long-term absent employees

The Validium Group has the expertise to transform absent employees into productive workers. Long-term absence is a serious and expensive issue for employers. Once an employee has been absent for six weeks, the chances of a return to work are halved, with feelings of isolation, depression and anxiety about going back often proving more debilitating than the original reason for absence. Over half of all absent employees have been off work for more than six weeks.

We have a very high success rate in helping long-term absent employees back into the workplace, and follow-up at 6 months indicates that we also have a very low relapse rate. The programme has also been used successfully as a preventative measure with employees at risk of long-term absence.

The success of our Minimise Absence solution is founded on our solid HR experience, clinical expertise in our Case Managers, Chartered Psychologists, Psychotherapists and Counsellors and a proven process that absent employees trust.

While maintaining confidentiality within agreed boundaries, the Validium Case Manager liaises between the professional consultant who is helping the employee and the employer’s HR and /or OH, to identify what adjustments can be made to help the employee return to work and stay at work. Our professional consultant and the employee, meanwhile, are working together to reduce the impact of the issues that are keeping the employee out of the workplace, whatever those issues may be.

For more information, contact Validium.

Manage Trauma

Prepare for and manage critical incidents

If your organisation is to recover quickly from a traumatic or critical incident, it’s essential that the individuals affected are able to manage the trauma as effectively as possible. Moreover, by responding quickly and efficiently to any kind of traumatic incident, you will reassure employees that their wellbeing matters, which in itself helps individuals and the organisation to recover.

Thanks to the psychological expertise and cost-effective support provided by The Validium Group, you can get a comprehensive package to Manage Trauma, including help to prepare for, and to respond to, any kind of human disaster.

Following a detailed consultation, your dedicated account manager will share best practice insight into disaster planning and management to help you create a detailed recovery plan. We train managers and key HR personnel to co-ordinate disaster response and manage their own reaction, and to deal with staff, emergency services and media in the immediate aftermath.

To help reduce the risk of long-term psychological impact we support affected employees, including local managers, by providing a helpline manned by experienced trauma-trained counsellors, onsite group or individual debriefings run by accredited trauma debriefing specialists, individual follow-up meetings a month later to identify those individuals who need specialised support, and a series of follow-up calls over the next 12 months.

For more information, contact Validium.

Support Employees

Keep employees engaged and productive

If you support employees with confidential access to qualified counsellors, lawyers and debt advisers from Validium, you can expect to generate a return of several pounds for every pound invested – not to mention valuable management data to inform future policies.

In an ideal world, every employee would be able to leave their personal life at home and focus 100% on their job. The reality is that, whether it’s personal debt, divorce, care issues, workplace bullying or anxiety about managing others, employees distracted by worries or concerns cannot perform fully at work.

Committed to working in partnership with HR to measurably improve the value of people to the organisation, Validium can help you boost productivity by supporting your people with our Employee Assistance Programme (EAP). This provides employees with 24/7 confidential access to fully accredited counsellors and information specialists in these areas:

Emotional
Health
Management
Legal
Debt
Elder and Younger Care
Financial

Established over 10 years ago, Validium now provides Employee Assistance Programmes to some of the UK’s best-known employers, supporting over a quarter of a million employees.

For more information, contact Validium.

Psychological Rehab Management

In the aftermath of an accident or other traumatic event, the claimant or employee may be suffering from psychological as well as physical injury. In many cases this condition may have been assessed by a Psychiatrist or Psychologist and certain recommendations for treatment made. Validium is able to provide Psychological Management Services for insurers, law firms and employers.

Access to Validium’s national multi-disciplinary network of over 1,500 Chartered Psychologists, Psychotherapists, Counsellors offering Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) specialists ensures a fast and efficient response to your needs. Validium’s approach can considerably reduce the time taken to process ill-health or accident damages claims, leading to more effective treatment plans. This will reduce costs associated with lengthy and/or delayed interventions, providing a clear financial benefit. Our commitment to excellent customer service ensures that assignments are carried out with maximum efficiency in line with customer requirement.

For more information, contact Validium.

Audits and Surveys

Validium can offer audits and surveys covering the main areas of organisational interest:

Stress/motivation
Lifestyle
Staff attitude/opinion
Internal communications

These can contribute effectively to a corporate 'health check'. Formal written objectives are always agreed in advance and explanations and recommendations are generated for each perceived problem area or improvement opportunity identified by the audit or survey. Questionnaires are carefully analysed to enable trends and 'hot spots' to be presented. Focus group discussions may also be appropriate to provide additional insight.

Results can be analysed to corporate specification, allowing particular problem areas to be highlighted. These can include location, department, grade or salary band, gender, length of service, and so on. It is sometimes appropriate to distribute the questionnaire as an electronic 'form' via email or your corporate Intranet. Importantly, while offering the basis of a reliable and concise measurement instrument for assessing the elements being examined, an initial report can be a 'baseline' against which future trends can be compared.

For more information, contact Validium.

Mediation and Investigation

Workplace mediation is an early opportunity for the people concerned to communicate with one another in a private, safe and secure environment with the help of an independent and trained mediator. Mediation costs are typically one-third of those expected in pursuing traditional grievances.

Many organisations have commented that mediation fits their values far better than the more adversarial approaches. Our mediators are trained, experienced and professionally qualified in workplace mediation.

Sometimes difficult relationships have reached a stage where they require a formal investigation as part of your internal grievance or Dignity at Work procedures. We can help you to respond quickly, professionally, and with an important independent component.

Our team of trained, impartial investigators will enable you to demonstrate objectivity by creating the right balance of skill, gender, cultural and ethnic representation. They can chair investigations for you, assisting less experienced internal investigators in their development.

Our investigators are experienced in the sensitive questioning of those involved, including witnesses, have learned techniques for establishing the truth, know the law and write clear and concise reports.

They enable the line manager responsible to take subsequent action with confidence and consistent with your own policies and procedures.

These services take full account of the Employment Act 2002 and particularly the requirement, by Autumn 2004, that claimants and their organisations should have exhausted all constructive resolution stages to their procedures before submitting cases to employment tribunal.

For more information, contact Validium.