Holland & Barrett's Live Well Programme in Sri Lanka Celebrates Success

Live Well: Turning worker wellbeing into lasting impact in Sri Lanka

When Holland & Barrett launched Live Well in Sri Lanka, our ambition was simple: to help people live better for longer by shifting from treating illness to proactive prevention and to put health and wellbeing knowledge into the hands of the people working within our supply chain. Working with English Tea Shop and Swasti, the programme uses a ‘Train the Trainer’ model to provide practical, culturally relevant education covering nutrition, hygiene, preventative health, emotional wellbeing, stress management and healthy workplace practices.

Now, we’re seeing the impact.

More than 280 employees across two English Tea Shop factories in Colombo have completed the programme. Seven employee groups have completed all 10 health and wellbeing modules, while 19 English Tea Shop team members have been trained and certified as Workplace Health Trainers, building internal capability to continue sharing this knowledge with colleagues. The programme is also helping translate knowledge into everyday behaviour.

Skipping daily breakfast fell from 27.1% to 7.1%, daily exercises which includes stretching increased from 2.9% to 14.3%. Employees started to understand how to prevent illness and the proportion of employees able to identify three or more seasonal illness prevention measures increased from 42.9% to 60%. We have also seen encouraging operational outcomes. Over the three-month measurement period, average absence due to employees' own illness fell from 2.1 to 1.5 days, while absence due to family illness fell from 1.6 to 0.6 days.

For Holland & Barrett, Live Well demonstrates what responsible sourcing can look like when we work collaboratively with our suppliers to create positive impact for the people behind our products.

The next step is to build on what we have learned, with recommendations including ongoing peer-led sessions, refresher training for Workplace Health Trainers, preventative health screening and further mental health and counselling support.

Because wellness starts at the source – and healthier supply chains start with healthier people.