November Shining Star: Atom Bank

Atom Bank were the United Kingdom's first bank built for smartphone or tablet, without any branches. Atom Bank are based in Aykley Heads in Durham, and were awarded with Maintaining Excellence earlier this year!

Why did you decide to sign up to the BHAWA?

We saw what great work other companies had done through the award and we wanted to be involved. It’s a great way to network with other businesses and swap ideas of how we can create a healthier, happier workplace for our people.

How do you find that the award benefits the organisation, and its employees?

We care about our people, we want Atom to be a great place to work and we want to attract great people to come and work with us. The award gives us structure and helps us to get creative with our strategy meaning our employees get to enjoy fun activities whilst hopefully enhancing their physical health and their mental wellbeing. It has helped us to increase engagement levels whilst also helping contribute towards decreased sickness levels across the business.  

What kind of activities have you organised in line with the award so far?

Since being involved in the award, we have organised so many activities, it is hard to pick just a few! We have hosted many online lunch & learns with external speakers on topics such as Financial Wellbeing, Neurodiversity Awareness, Fertility Awareness, Gut Health and much more! These sessions have influenced us to introduce new policies, and change how we manage workplace adjustments etc.

We have quarterly step challenges which usually have 80-100 people taking part and we have a ceremony at the end to show how far each team walked around the world! We have also organised yoga classes and Atom Olympics to keep our people active, with a variety of competitions held in person and online to ensure inclusivity. This has helped to promote teamwork, taking a break, communication and healthy competition!

We also arranged a petting zoo as it has been shown that interactions with animals can help us to de-stress – the petting zoo was probably our most popular activity to date!

We have a fantastic team of trained mental health first aiders who often plan support groups and breakfast meets where people can drop in and out and have a casual chat to escape their desk for a while or visit a confidential room and have a more in-depth conversation if needed.

We have also recently trained 28 colleagues to become menopause champions, and we are on our journey towards becoming a menopause friendly accredited workplace!