Domestic & General is helping its employees to keep fit during February, by hosting a wellness event to help them reignite their long forgotten New Year resolutions.

Employees at the Nottingham-based call centre attended a free event hosted by the company's wellness team, which aimed to help people to boost their resolutions, whether it was to lose weight, quit smoking or to save some pennies. 

Representatives from WeightWatchers and Nuffield Health Centre were invited in to offer health and fitness advice to employees. Smoke Free Homes and a spokesperson from the NHS campaign 'New Leaf' also attended on the day and were able to give smokers carbon monoxide testing and support on how to quit smoking. The wellness team were also offering tips on financial planning and how to make savings and cut costs.

Clare Nock is from the HR team at Domestic & General and organised the event. She said: "The New Year wellness event was a really big success. Smoke Free Homes estimated that around 15 people signed up to the Smoke Free Homes Pledge and a further 15 took away details for the New Leaf support services. Many others came along to have their carbon monoxide levels tested and to just speak with the advisors. 

"Thirty-eight people signed up to the 'at work WeightWatchers group'. This was fantastic as we are now able to launch the group and will be finalising the details with WeightWatchers and will be starting the group in the next couple of weeks. Internally, we also produced our own 'Wallet Wellness' financial guides, which proved really popular."

Domestic & General is well known for tackling sickness by helping to promote wellbeing amongst its 900 Nottingham based employees. Since 2008, the contact centre has been running a Wellness Wednesday initiative, which has included activities such as a Weight Watchers visit, occupational therapy, healthy breakfast options Zumba classes and Nintendo Wii Fit sessions, all free of charge to employees.

Since its creation, the wellbeing initiative has had a striking impact on time lost to illness. When it launched, the company had 5.81% of annual sickness absence, dropping to its lowest ever, 2.89%, last autumn. This is well below the organisation's target of 3.5%. And the organisers say the take-up rate for initiatives such as this one has been fantastic, with most sessions booked out.

Since Wellness Wednesday launched, Domestic & General has also found employee engagement levels are up, with more staff than ever choosing to stay on at the firm.