13 March 2018

Shaping up for Health Haven

Whitehaven Coal is doing its bit to improve the health and wellbeing of employees.

Over the next three months the mining company will encourage workers from all sites to get out and moving as a part of the company’s new Health Haven challenge.

The voluntary program began in early March with employees undergoing a full health check before competing as individuals and against other Whitehaven sites.

Whitehaven Coal General Manager Health Safety Environment and Communities Kirsten Gollogly said the program had many great prizes with winners announced at the end of the challenge.

“We’re looking at wellness and good dietary choices as well as health checks at the beginning and the end to show how far you can come in just 12 weeks,” Ms Gollogly said.

“There are individual prizes for the top three in greatest level of activity, greatest health improvement and the site with the highest level of participation will have $5000 donated to a charity of their choice.”

Whitehaven Coal group superintendent for health Jessica Pereira said a main goal of the challenge is greater long term wellbeing for all employees.

“We want to make the challenge as inclusive as possible for everybody and target all pillars of health,” Ms Pereira said.

“The other aim is to provide people with the resources for greater health through the company with things like healthy recipes or research studies on certain health topics available on our online health hub to ensure people have access to these resources long term.”

Whitehaven Coal CEO Paul Flynn said the community could expect to see more Whitehaven employees out-and-about during the challenge.

“At Whitehaven, we’re serious about ensuring our workers have the tools necessary to lead healthy lifestyles at and away from work, HealthHaven is an innovative way of helping us achieve this,” Mr Flynn said.

“We’ve launched the program with a 12-week activity challenge, which means that our people will be out and about on local streets more often, improving their health and fitness while competing for individual prizes and $5,000 for their nominated charity.”

Ms Gollogly said the company will look to make the challenge an annual event.

“By doing this every year we are hoping people will see sustained improvement over that period,” she said.

“We are very keen to make it something that is very inclusive, so you don’t have to join a gym, or invest in equipment or those sorts of things, you can go for a walk at the end of the day with your kids or your dog and hopefully we can be a mechanism for change that can benefit the community.”

Pictured are members of Whitehaven’s Gunnedah office-based team stepping up for the Health Haven challenge.

Source: Northern Daily Leader

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