Local health and wellness coach, Laura Butler, is calling for businesses to get involved in Shropshire Wellbeing Day as part of World Wellbeing Week this June.

Any business that signs up will have free access to downloadable activities and competitions. Laura is collaborating with a number of national and local wellbeing partners to provide activities and prizes on the day, including techtimeout, Wellbeing Festival, and Smile Box. Businesses are being asked to sign up ahead of the event on June 23.

According to the TUC UK workers put in the longest hours in the EU but our overworking culture is actually making us less productive. In 2019/20 there were an estimated 828,000 workers affected by work-related stress, depression or anxiety, and an estimated 17.9 million working days lost. In the same period work-related stress, depression or anxiety accounted for 51% of all work-related ill health.

Laura would like businesses across the county to sign up and put wellbeing at the top of their agenda for the day. She said, “As the world opens up and life becomes busier and more hectic, it’s crucial we check in on our own mental wellbeing. If the pandemic has taught us anything about ourselves, it is that taking care of our mental and physical health is really important.

“I believe it’s time for a fundamental shift in how we all operate, and I want Shropshire Wellbeing Day to be that first small step in the right direction, to create a catalyst for change. I’ll be immensely pleased if we can get lots of businesses signed up and thinking about wellbeing!”

Laura will be giving businesses free access to downloadable activities from her newly launched online resource – The Wellness Hub. The Wellness Hub provides affordable support to businesses to improve wellbeing in the workplace with webinars, blogs, videos, and live training sessions with accredited health and wellness coaches.

Laura adds, “There will be different activities to choose from, such as switching a sit-down meeting to a walk and talk, making time for a yoga session or making a healthy lunch together as a team. These activities might seem small, but they are a starting block to prioritising our wellbeing and making time for self-care.”

World Wellbeing Week is in its third year and will run from June 21 to 30 as a way to promote awareness for the wide-ranging aspects of wellbeing, including social, physical, emotional, financial, career, community and environmental wellbeing.

Shropshire Festivals have already signed up to be part of the day. Beth Heath at Shropshire Festivals said, “After everything we’ve all been through in the last year or so, it is crucial for employers to put their team’s mental and physical wellbeing at the top of their priorities. I love the idea of Shropshire’s businesses coming together for a county-wide wellbeing day, and hope lots more businesses join Shropshire Festivals for some fun wellbeing activities.”

To sign up to Shropshire Wellbeing Day and for more information visit www.shropshirewellbeingday.co.uk.

Pictured: Wellness Coach, Laura Butler.