Tui

TUI is the Belgian market leader in the package holiday sector, selling to 2 million travellers a year. The tour operator’s strong position is partly due to the efforts of its physically and mentally healthy employees. TUI therefore actively promotes psychosocial and physical health in the workplace. This involves both executives and other employees and has achieved great results.

TUI Belgium has more than 2300 employees, 600 of which work in Tour Operating. “We have various employee profi les within our department, ranging from product managers to communication assistants and accountants”, Nico Van gorp, Internal Prevention Advisor of the division, explains. “Our staff all work with VDUs, leading to symptoms such as back and wrist problems. There are also risks in other areas. And we take care of these. Together with Mensura, we are furthermore extra committed to psychosocial well-being in the workplace.”

This focus on mental health is not a coincidence. Last year, 28,000 Belgians were off work with a burn-out. Nico: “At TUI, we also find that some employees struggle with their mental health. As a result, they are sometimes absent. To raise executives’ awareness of this problem and help them deal with it, we hired Mensura for the ‘First Aid Mental Health’ training.”

Executives often don’t have the necessary knowledge and experience to recognise mental health problems in time. Boudewijn D’Hauwers, Prevention Advisor for Psychosocial Aspects at Mensura: “In the ‘First Aid Mental Health’ training, executives learn techniques to spot employees with mental health problems at an early stage. They discover how to distinguish between various problems, such as burnout and depression. In addition, the participants are given a few self-help strategies they can share with their team. They also learn how they should help employees in acute situations and when it is best to refer them to professional help.”
 

The training was a real eye-opener for the participants. Nico: “The practical exercises and roleplay showed that many executives in our division had already come into contact with these kinds of problems. They shared their testimonies and exchanged mutual experiences. This in itself was a big help. The training turned out to be the crucial trigger to paying more attention to the employees’ mental well-being - since then executives have been better at picking up signals of mental health problems and are quicker to refer employees to the counsellor or HR department. The participants still support each other now by discussing their insights together.”

But recognising and signalling mental health problems is not only an executive task. Nico: “We involve everyone within our organisation in psychosocial well-being in the workplace. Because we can only achieve a sustainable result once mental health is everyone’s objective, allowing everyone to stay healthier and work for longer. We are therefore organising sessions in 2019 that are also aimed at teaching non-executives the necessary techniques.”

Despite all these preventive measures, mental health problems can never be completely avoided. TUI realises this and has therefore implemented a strong reintegration policy, in collaboration with Mensura. Nico: “If employees are absent for a longer period of time, we determine a reintegration programme with a feasible work rhythm and a customised set of duties. And this is paying off - up until now, the majority of the absentees were able to be reintegrated.”
 

TUI also takes care of its employees’ physical well-being. Nico: “Screen work can cause a lot of complaints, such as back and wrist problems. To avoid ergonomic overload, we count on the expertise of one of Mensura’s prevention experts. They look at the workplace together with each employee and offer individual advice. This allows us to pay specifi c attention to each profi le.”

The employees are very enthusiastic about the fact that TUI promotes physical and mental well-being. “Our annual internal survey shows that satisfaction systematically increases. Because TUI is committed to its employees’ mental and physical health, the latter’s involvement also increases. We are therefore determined to continue in the same vein in 2019.”

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