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Bronze Award:

Guidance for Organisations

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Table of Contents

Welcome to the Bronze Award 3

Bronze Award Overview 3

Bronze Award Assessment Process 4

Bronze Criteria 5

Assembling Your Portfolio 6

Presenting a Hard Copy Portfolio 6

Presenting an ePortfolio 6

Maintaining your award - Annual Review Procedure 8

Annual Review Report Guidance 8

Annual Review Quality Assurance 10

Appeals Procedure 11

Assessment/Annual Review Appeal Form 12

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Welcome to the Bronze Award

Congratulations on taking the first step towards developing a planned and integrated approach to

improving health, safety and wellbeing at work. You may already fulfil some of the criteria and be well

on your way to achieving the award.

The Healthy Working Lives Programme awards achievement at three levels: Bronze, Silver and Gold.

By participating in the Award Programme, you will enjoy all the benefits of developing a coordinated,

custom-designed programme meeting the needs of your organisation. You will also receive support

from our network of expert Healthy Working Lives Advisers.

In this booklet you’ll find all sorts of helpful information about how to achieve and maintain the Bronze

Award – you will learn about the overall framework of the award, steps involved in achieving and

maintaining the award, resources available and more.

Bronze Award Overview

Employees in your organisation are aware of how their health, safety and wellbeing

affects their work.

Employees understand the role of health and safety and health improvement and

how they can be supported at work.

Your organisation ensures that the work undertaken by its employees does not

adversely affect their health and indeed understands how work can protect and

improve their mental, physical and social health.

As a result of consultation and engagement with employees, your

organisation is aware of and is addressing health, safety and wellbeing issues at

work.

In achieving the Bronze Award you

will be able to demonstrate that:

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Bronze Award Assessment Process

• Register for the Healthy Working Lives Award Programme.1. Register

• Your Adviser will contact you within 5 working days to discuss a work plan.

• You will receive an email with login details for your ePortfolio.

2. Workplan and ePortfolio

• Upload evidence and complete the record sheets in the ePortfolio (in any order you choose).

• These must be completed, signed and dated within the last 12 months prior to award achievement.

3. Complete ePortfolio

• Your Adviser will review your uploaded evidence and record sheets.

• Once you and your Adviser are satisfied that the evidence and record sheets meet the criteria, both parties sign them off.

4. ePortfolio Approval

• If you and your Adviser agree that all of the criteria have been met, the Bronze award letter and certificate will be printed and sent to your organisation within 3 working days.

5. Award Achievement

• If you and your Adviser do not agree that all of the criteria have been met, you may follow the Appeal procedure (see pg. 11).6. Appeal

• 1 in 3 Bronze awards are selected for QA by the National HWL Award Team. Your Adviser will be notified and your portfolio will be reviewed by a verifier. If the portfolio does not meet the required standards, the Adviser will be notified and they will work with you to address the issues.

7. Quality Assurance

• You and your Adviser will agree next steps including action planning for the next year in time for your first Annual Review (see pg. 8).

8. Maintaining your Award

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Bronze Criteria

First of all, you will need to complete:

A. Organisation Profile and Health & Safety Checklist

This is completed as part of the ePortfolio. The HWL Organisation Profile gives a snapshot of your

organisation at a specific point in time and can be used as a benchmark to measure improvement.

It is important that you are already addressing the minimum health and safety requirements for your

organisation. To ensure this, you will complete a Health and Safety Checklist (Hard Copy Portfolio only)

or complete the 10-point Checklist at the end of the online Organisation Profile (ePortfolio only).

Following this, you must demonstrate in your ePortfolio how you meet all four Bronze criteria:

1. Address Healthy Working Lives in the organisation

You will need to establish a working group for Healthy Working Lives that represents employees from

all levels of your organisation. Alternatively, you may demonstrate that an existing group within your

organisation has been given responsibility to coordinate all aspects of Healthy Working Lives.

2. Address health, safety and wellbeing needs in the organisation

This criterion focuses on four main areas: employee consultation, training, supporting employee

attendance and avoiding accidents in the organisation. You will need to hold an employee consultation

at least every three years using either the HWL Employee Wellbeing Survey (EWS) or if you are already

consulting with your employees, complete an EWS matching tool. You should also demonstrate how

you identify and record the training needs of employees within the organisation. Your organisation

should have a system or procedure in place for recording days when employees are absent from work,

and for recording accidents, incidents and near misses.

3. Promote and raise awareness of occupational health, safety and wellbeing topics

Your organisation should use a range of approaches to raise awareness and provide information on a

variety of occupational health, safety and wellbeing topics. These may include topics that have been

identified in the employee consultation conducted under Criterion 2 or suggested by employees.

You will need to provide the following information campaigns and activities as a minimum:

3 x health, safety and wellbeing information campaigns

2 x health, safety and wellbeing activities

1 x activity based on the topic of mental health

1 x information campaign to raise awareness of the smoking policy

4. Implement a smoking policy

Your organisation should develop and implement a smoking policy over and above the legislative requirements that meets the essential elements of the policy assessment tool. Your Adviser will help you work through the policy assessment tool. This criterion also includes providing information to all employees about the smoking policy and participating in campaigns that encourage smoking cessation. Find more detailed information about the Bronze Criteria here: http://www.healthscotland.com/uploads/documents/4905-HWLAwardsBronze.pdf

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Assembling Your Portfolio

The National HWL Award Team will send you an email with login details for your ePortfolio, though you may assemble a hard copy portfolio if you prefer. To achieve an award you need to assemble a portfolio of evidence to show how you’ve met the

criteria. The information you provide will be passed on to Advisers for the purposes of the Award

Programme. We will keep that information confidential and we will not disclose it to any third parties,

unless we are required to do so by law.

Presenting a Hard Copy Portfolio

Evidence checklist must be completed.

Record sheets and supporting mandatory evidence should be placed within the relevant

section. Record sheets should be fully completed in ink or typed by yourselves. All

questions should be answered and signed off and dated by yourselves and your Adviser if

at Bronze level.

Presenting an ePortfolio

Record sheets and supporting mandatory evidence should be uploaded to the appropriate

tabs within the relevant section and signed off online by your Adviser. Record sheets

should be fully completed with all questions answered with adequate detail. One word or

one sentence answers are typically not adequate.

Getting Started

When you log into your ePortfolio and click on “Workspaces” you will be brought to this page. Click

on Bronze to open your portfolio.

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When you click on each of the criteria headings, you will see the different categories of evidence to

be uploaded and record sheets to be filled out. A folder will appear next to evidence categories that

do not have any uploaded evidence. Once you upload the evidence, this becomes a red dot. Once your

Adviser has signed off a piece of evidence or record sheet, it becomes a green dot. Your portfolio is

complete when all of the mandatory evidence and record sheets have a green dot.

Please see the following ePortfolio YouTube clips for further step by step information, including how

to upload evidence and fill out record sheets:

• Getting Started with ePortfolio:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y42Ww9Dvyuk&feature=youtu.beh

• Uploading Information to ePortfolio:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16QYLPIhS6g&feature=youtu.be

• Record Sheets, Policy Tools and Organisation Profile Templates:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmDlYNroygo&feature=youtu.be

• Progressing Between Levels and Annual Reviews:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLj48JSXMug&feature=youtu.be

After the ePortfolio approval

You will receive a confirmation email with the award outcome. If you are successful in achieving the

Bronze award, the Bronze award letter and certificate will be printed and sent to your organisation

within 3 working days.

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Maintaining your award - Annual Review Procedure

In order to retain your HWL award, you will be required to complete an online Annual Review form

within 6 weeks either side of the anniversary of your award achievement. Therefore you have 12

weeks total to complete the Annual Review. The main HWL contact from your organisation will have

access to the form, although any member of the HWL working group is allowed to complete it.

The Annual Review is based on activity during the previous 12 months and planning for the next 12

months.

Annual Review Report Guidance

It is crucial that you ensure Healthy Working Lives are updated on who in your organisation

is the main contact for the award. Without this information you risk your award being

withdrawn due to us being unable to make contact. You can do this by either contacting your

Adviser, calling us at the Adviceline on 0800 019 2211 or by emailing us at nhs.healthscotland-

hwlaward@nhs.net.

You will need your portfolio/evidence (valid in the last 12 months) to hand when completing

your Annual Review form. This includes ensuring your policy tools are up to date and current.

Remember to save the document regularly. You do not need to complete it all in one session,

you can save and return to the document at a later date/time.

Your data is protected by your ID and password.

If you have any technical issues completing your review form please email us at

nhs.hwldatabase@nhs.net.

You can print a PDF copy of the report if you require a hard copy, but you can always access

the report electronically via the ePortfolio (if you are signed up for this).

Please note you will not receive a new certificate every year as the certificate issued when

you achieve the award is valid until your award is no longer current.

Getting Started

When you click onto the Annual Review link you have received in your email, you will be presented

with the screen below.

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After you log in with your ePortfolio login details, you will be presented with the following screen.

i. Please complete all sections of the document and SAVE regularly as you go. You can save and

exit the document at any point and return later to complete it.

ii. When you “Submit to adviser” the system will ensure that all mandatory fields are completed.

Until they are all filled in you will not be able to complete this stage.

iii. Once you “Submit to adviser” successfully, your Adviser will receive a message to let them

know you have submitted your Annual Review. Your Adviser may wish to discuss the contents

of the report with you so please ensure they have time to do this.

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Annual Review Quality Assurance

A minimum of one in five organisations per health board are selected for Quality Assurance (QA) of

their Annual Review. If you are selected, you and your Adviser will be notified accordingly.

Quality Assurance is to ensure that what you have written in your annual review form is consistent

with your evidence. This will be conducted by your Adviser reviewing the online review form followed

by a visit to your organisation. They will contact you to arrange a visit within 6 weeks of QA selection,

and will outline the key elements of the QA review visit with you.

During the QA review visit, the Adviser will:

Review the Annual Review form with the main contact in your organisation, with a portfolio

of evidence, identifying any gaps, updates or other areas for further exploration or resolution.

Discuss baseline/current data for the Organisation Profile benchmark indicators.

Meet with relevant members of the HWL award working group to discuss any issues identified

from the annual review form and explore their views on how the award has impacted the

organisation and the workforce.

The annual review QA visit is expected to last no more than a ½ day. Your Adviser will notify the

Award Administrator of the QA visit outcome. If the review visit is deemed not to meet the required

standard, your adviser will detail what is missing or incorrect and refer you to the appeals process

(see pg. 11).

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• Contact your Adviser within 10 working days of receiving the decisionindicating you are appealing the decision and the reason(s) for the appeal.

• If you have not completed your annual review within the designatedtimeframe, please contact your adviser or national award team to submit anappeals form.

1. Before Appeal

• Your Adviser will set up a review discussion with you within 10 workingdays or as soon as reasonably possible to discuss their annual reviewapproval decision. Your Adviser will support you in developing solutionswhich will ensure the HWL award criteria are met in a reasonable timescale.

• If you still disagree with your Adviser's annual review decision, tell them atthe end of the review discussion that you intend to appeal.

2. Review Discussion

(Annual Review Appeal only)

•Complete and submit an appeal form (pg. 12) to the National AwardManager (nhs.healthscotland-hwlaward@nhs.net) within 10 working days(Bronze Assessment Appeal) or within 15 working days of the reviewdiscussion (Annual Review Appeal).

3. Appeal

•The National Award Manager will review the appeal form, and may arrange areview discussion with you and your Adviser. The review discussion will bearranged within 10 working days or as soon as reasonably practicable.

•The National Award Manager may review the portfolio of evidence, annualreview form and meet with members of your HWL team/employees on theday of the review discussion.

4. What Happens Next

•The National Award Manager will make a final decision on whether to uphold the appeal or not and will provide you and your Adviser with feedback on the decision within 5 working days.

•All decisions made by the National Award Manager are final. This may result in the entire HWL award being removed. If this is the case removal of the award will be administered by the National Award Team. If an action plan and timescale for completion to maintain an award is part of their recommendations this will be monitored and managed by your Adviser.

5. Final Decision

Appeals Procedure

If you disagree with the conclusions of your Assessment or Annual Review, or your Annual Review has

not been completed in the timeframe, you have a right to appeal. If you have not completed your

Annual Review within the designated 6 weeks either side of your award achievement date, you should

contact your Adviser and the National HWL Award team email (nhs.healthscotland-

hwlaward@nhs.net) to submit an appeal form (see pg. 12).

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HEALTHY WORKING LIVES AWARD ASSESSMENT/ANNUAL

REVIEW APPEAL FORM

This form should be completed by organisations wishing to submit an appeal. This form is a statement

of appeal and should be submitted within 10 days of the assessment/ annual review or if the annual

review has not been completed. Submission of this form means that the organisation will not gain an

award until the outcome of the appeals process is determined.

ORGANISATION:

NAME OF

ORGANISATION

CONTACT:

ADVISER/

ASSESSOR NAME:

DATE OF

ASSESSMENT OR

ANNUAL REVIEW:

AWARD LEVEL:

STATEMENT OF

APPEAL: (Indicate

why you are

appealing)

DATE OF

SUBMISSION OF

THIS FORM:

APPEAL OUTCOME:

NATIONAL AWARD

MANAGER

SIGNATURE:

DATE:

This form should be sent by email to nhs.healthscotland-hwlaward@nhs.net or by post to National

Award Manager, NHS Health Scotland, Gyle Square, 1 South Gyle Cres, Edinburgh, EH12 9EB.

Receipt will be acknowledged.