The fine print

VitalityHealth commissions Britain’s Healthiest Workplace (BHW) in a partnership with RAND Europe, Cambridge University, Mercer Marsh Benefits and the Financial Times.  Additionally RAND Europe commissions the services of Research Now Ltd, trading as Dynata to conduct the survey.

i) Organisations will be asked to complete an online survey, the Organisational Health Assessment, which, amongst other areas, asks for information on workforce demographics, the organisation’s culture around employee health, and details of the health and wellbeing interventions currently on offer within the organisation.

ii) On a voluntary basis, employees will complete an online survey, the Employee Health Assessment, which asks questions about a range of topics including, but not limited to, their physical health, lifestyle behaviours, mental health, and their work environment. To be eligible for participation, employees must be at least 18 years of age. It is the responsibility of the organisation to disseminate the link to the Employee Health Assessment to its employees.

i) You should only agree to these terms and conditions if you are authorised to commit your organisation to take part in Britain’s Healthiest Workplace.  By registering to take part, you are agreeing to these terms and conditions and signifying that you have the necessary authority to do so.

ii) Participating organisations must have a minimum of 20 employees with email access to take part in this initiative.

iii) Employees will be asked to confirm a unique work email address to verify their participation. 

iv) By exception only, those employees without a valid work email address may be permitted to use a personal email account.

v) To ensure statistically-credible results, each organisation must attain a minimum employee participation rate that is determined with reference to its overall employee size. The participation rate will be confirmed after registration. Organisations that do not achieve the minimum participation rate will not be eligible to receive their Organisational Health Report or to rank for any of the Britain’s Healthiest Workplace awards. Participating organisations will also be asked to confirm the number of individuals to whom they will distribute the survey. Only by exception will we allow business units of organisations to take part independently.

vi) Participating organisations must agree to their relevant representatives being interviewed, filmed and/or photographed. If an organisation is assessed to be a top performer in Britain’s Healthiest Workplace or in any of the award categories, or is one of the most improved repeating organisations in the survey, VitalityHealth and/or the Financial Times, as well as other media outlets, may publish its story in print and online.

vii) The name of any organisation that achieves a top-quartile ranking in either the overall Britain’s Healthiest Workplace award or in any of the individual award categories may be published in relation to this ranking. Britain’s Healthiest Workplace retains the right to name all organisations that participate – however, no organisation that ranked outside of the top quartile will be named in connection to their ranking without express consent being obtained.

viii)  The Employee Health Assessment should be sent to full-time and part-time employees. It is at the discretion of the participating organisation whether to send to short-term contracted and temporary staff

The organisation representative should:

i) Complete the Organisational Health Assessment which will include questions on topics including, but not limited to, employee demographics, wellness facilities and how the organisation is investing in the health of its employees. The Organisational Health Assessment can only be completed by organisations with 20 or more employees.

ii) Ensure that all employees are able to access the online questionnaire.

iii) Email employees to notify them of the organisation’s participation in the initiative, and encourage them to complete the Employee Health Assessment. An Employer Toolkit will be provided to support employers in promoting the initiative to their employees.

iv) Help to set up interviews with the appropriate organisation spokesperson and arrange photo opportunities in the event that the organisation is a top performing organisation in Britain’s Healthiest Workplace or any sub-award category.

i) Employees who submit a completed Employee Health Assessment will each receive a Personal Health Report that outlines their physical and mental wellbeing risks, and includes recommendations on how to make positive changes going forward. The Personal Health Report further includes the employee’s Vitality Age, which is their current age adjusted for the impact of lifestyle choices and clinical and mental wellbeing risk factors on their health.

ii) Individuals receive their Personal Health Report as soon as they submit their final responses.  Organisational reporting is run after the survey closes and organisations will receive an Organisational Health Report usually within two months of the survey close. The Organisational Health Report provides an overall, aggregated view of employee health and work performance across the organisation; evaluates the effectiveness of existing health and wellbeing services and interventions and provides unique bench-marking information that can be used to inform future strategies and approaches.

Taking part in the survey is free to both organisations and individuals, and participation is completely voluntary. Each individual consents to the use of their data in clear terms before completing the survey, and can withdraw their consent at any time. This protects their rights and allows legal data processing. We clearly inform individuals and organisations about this in the consenting information provided in the preliminary information to the survey. By agreeing to these terms and conditions you are signalling that you understand your employees are consenting directly as individual participants in the survey and can opt in or out of the survey voluntarily. Findings derived from aggregating all employee responses across all participating organisations will be made publicly available via reports and research articles.

As well as upholding strict governance of the organisational information you provide, any personal information that employees provide is covered by data protection standards regulated by the Data Protection Act 2018 and EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).  There are four paramount principles that Britain’s Healthiest Workplace commits to uphold with regard to personal employee information:

1. Individual employee responses will be kept confidential and will not be shared with employers;

2. No individual employee will be identifiable in any survey output, such as the Organisational Health Report, Financial Times Health at Work magazine, or research articles;

3. Employee responses will only be used to achieve the stated purpose of the Britain’s Healthiest Workplace initiative;

4. Employee respondents will not be exposed to any marketing activity.

By entering Britain’s Healthiest Workplace, organisations understand that their employees agree and give consent to RAND Europe and Research Now Ltd, trading as Dynata to process and analyse personal and sensitive health information as outlined in the Privacy Policy.

For a full description of the roles of the Britain’s Healthiest Workplace partners and the data protection protocols, please see our Privacy Policy at https://www.vitality.co.uk/business/healthiest-workplace/faqs/

i) Organisations and employees can stop participating at any time, without any benefit or disadvantage. 

ii) We will send organisations an Organisational Health Report only if they complete the Organisational Health Assessment and achieve the minimum employee response rate to the Employee Health Assessment.

iii) Employees can withdraw their consent to store or analyse their data at any time, and they are clearly provided with this information. More details of how to do this can be found in the Privacy Policy.

iv) Britain’s Healthiest Workplace reserves the right to end the initiative at any time.

Please email support@healthiestworkplace.co.uk

VitalityHealth commissions Britain’s Healthiest Workplace (BHW) in a partnership with RAND Europe, Cambridge University, Mercer Marsh Benefits and the Financial Times.

VitalityHealth, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Discovery Group, is a data controller having founded and commissioned the study.  RAND Europe, which performs the analytical and research functions associated with the study, is a data controller and processor. Research Now Ltd trading as Dynata, and its affiliates and subsidiaries world-wide, which hosts the survey and captures survey responses, is a data processor.  In order to present employee participants with their Vitality Age, a risk-adjusted age measure that forms the foundation of the feedback to participants, limited data is transferred to Discovery Ltd.  As a result, Discovery Ltd is a data processor of a set of de-personalised data linked only by way of a unique identifier code.

This Privacy Policy explains how we will use the information you give to us whilst completing the BHW survey.

Britain’s Healthiest Workplace is run to support organisations and UK policy decision makers in their understanding of workplace wellbeing and productivity, enabling employers and government to take action around employee health and wellbeing.  It also supports individuals taking part to become better informed about their health and supportive lifestyle behaviours.

Your consent to this survey allows us to process your data legally.  Taking part in the BHW survey is voluntary and down to your own choice.  We collect and store information about you if you complete the survey in the ways outlined below.  Many questions provide you with the option not to answer or say you don’t know.  The more questions you complete accurately, the more relevant your Personal Health Report will be that you receive following your completion of the survey. The Personal Health Report outlines your Vitality Age, provides a discussion of your specific combination of lifestyle choices and physical and mental health risk factors, and provides suggestions on steps that you can take to improve your health.

The type of information we collect in the employee survey (known as the Employee Health Assessment) includes information about your physical and mental health, your lifestyle behaviours, your place of work and your experience of the workplace.  Some of this is sensitive, personally identifiable information.  We do not collect your name or address in the employee survey, however we ask for your email address and you might have your name contained in this.  This is stored securely and transferred using encryption.  The first part of your postcode is asked so we can understand which regional area you live within.  We use your email address in order to remind you to finish the survey if you’ve exited it with a view to completing the survey at a later stage, to assist you with logging in to complete the survey, to send you your Personal Health Report and to match your responses to any other years that you take part, if you agree to this.

We collect your personal information through the Employee Health Assessment in order to calculate your Vitality Age and to provide you with your Personal Health Report.

If you consent, we will keep your data confidentially and securely to allow us to match your responses across the different years in which you take part in the survey.  You can withdraw your consent to this at any time, and request the deletion of your data.  The sole purpose in matching your responses across years is to enable the researchers to analyse trends and undertake research on workplace wellness issues. Your data will be analysed securely and separated from anything that personally identifies you.  It will be combined with data from other participants in the study, meaning that no personally identifiable information will be made available to the researchers or be used in any reporting or research outputs.

VitalityHealth commissions RAND Europe CIC, a not for profit research organisation, as the principal contractor to run and analyse the Britain’s Healthiest Workplace surveys.  RAND Europe has entered into contractual agreements with the named data processors who are processing data in connection with this Privacy Policy, which include data use, data security, and data destruction requirements.

RAND Europe has engaged Research Now Ltd, trading as Dynata to provide certain data processing services and activities in connection with the BHW survey project. Research Now Ltd, trading as Dynata will collect and record your consent to participate in the BHW survey and will collect, store, process and transfer your personal data and survey response data. RAND Europe has engaged Research Now Ltd, trading as Dynata through contractual clauses. These include model clauses to ensure the protection of your data. All data collected by Research Now Ltd, trading as Dynata will be exported to, stored in, and processed from the United States, which means your data will be exported and transferred outside of the European Union/European Economic Area.   To safeguard your information and ensure privacy and confidentiality, Research Now Ltd, trading as Dynata deletes data after the secure transfer of data to RAND Europe.  RAND Europe securely stores all data on its UK servers and analyses and reports on it. Only Research Now Ltd, trading as Dynata and RAND Europe can match and identify your data and this is strictly controlled in accordance with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Data Protection Act 2018 regulations.

In addition to the other processing of data as set out in the Privacy Policy, the answers that you provide in the Employee Health Assessment are needed to calculate your Vitality Age and to prepare your Personal Health Report. To assist with the processing of the Vitality Age, Research Now Ltd, trading as Dynata transfers certain data (using a unique identification number and your otherwise de-identified survey response data) to Discovery Ltd to generate your Vitality Age. The Vitality Age will be calculated using an algorithm. Upon the calculation of the Vitality Age, Discovery Ltd will transfer your Vitality Age back to Research Now Ltd, trading as Dynata and Research Now Ltd, trading as Dynata will combine the Vitality Age with your Personal Health Report.

After your Vitality Age is combined with your Personal Health Report you will receive an encoded, password-protected copy of your Personal Health Report that will be sent to the email address you provide. Except for Research Now Ltd, trading as Dynata and RAND Europe, no party will have access to your individual Personal Health Report.  

Your personal information is not used for marketing purposes and you will not be contacted unless you ask for it, for instance by emailing the Britain’s Healthiest Workplace team, or any of its partners, directly with a query.

The other types of reports and analysis produced by RAND Europe from the survey responses are de-identified and are based on the aggregate data received from all respondents to the survey. RAND Europe may work with other academic partners to research different aspects of the workplace using the BHW survey responses.  Presently this includes Cambridge University and the University of East Anglia, but can also include other academic partners and universities.. None of the associated academic partners receive any personally identifiable information, and are bound contractually in the way that they can use the BHW data.

The Organisational Heath Reports, which include the aggregated, anonymous responses from all employees in an organisation, are received by VitalityHealth in order to distribute to participating organisations. VitalityHealth distributes the encrypted confidential reports to each relevant organisation, with the report password being emailed separately from the report itself.  VitalityHealth will further share a particular employer’s Organisational Health Report with Mercer Marsh Benefits and Healthy Workplace, a joint venture of VitalityHealth and Nuffield Health. VitalityHealth and the BHW partners may share high-level results and findings from the survey, and any associated research, with the BHW media partner, The Financial Times, and other parties.

If you agree, we will securely and confidentially store your information for the duration of the BHW research project, which currently runs until at least 2021 but may run longer.  By retaining your data, RAND Europe is able to analyse long-term trends that support ongoing research into employee health and wellbeing.

You can email BHW_TechSupport@rand.org to access the information we hold about you.

To understand your rights, please consult the Information Commissioner’s Office guide on individual rights: ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/individual-rights/

For complaints, concerns or compliments you can contact: support@healthiestworkplace.co.uk

You can contact the ICO (Information Commissioners Office) to enquire about data protection or to raise complaints or concerns by visiting their website at https://ico.org.uk/ or telephoning 0303 123 1113.

If at anytime you’d like to withdraw your consent to your data being stored, either now or in the future, please email BHW_TechSupport@rand.org