Sickness and absence has been estimated to cost the UK economy £100bn a year.  To combat this amongst the small business community in particular, NHS Plus now makes their occupational health advisers available to business owners via free and confidential telephone adviceline. Recognising that ill health makes working life more difficult in many ways; the Health4Work Adviceline now makes it easy for SME employers to get professional support. This expert advice can help small businesses to manage health conditions so that staff can stay at work, or help employees back to work if they’ve taken time off. Putting some energy into getting work teams healthy not only helps improve their morale, but also saves businesses money and increases productivity.

Clear Thought has been appointed to plan and deliver an integrated social media marketing programme. The objective is to increase awareness of this valuable service amongst the small business community, which is increasingly active in social media networks.

Activity will start from November 2010 and will range from blogging, tweeting, YouTube videos, LinkedIn groups, Facebook pages, live web seminars, and much more.

Jeremy Greaves, MD of StrategyCom Ltd and retained marketing strategist for the initiative, commented, “The small business community is notoriously difficult to reach. Talking it through with Clear Thought, we’re convinced that we can help even more small businesses make use of this excellent free service by using social media to communicate. And, the more small businesses that pick up the phone, the more impact we’re going to have on workplace productivity in the UK – which is all the more important in the current economic environment.”

Bryony Thomas, Chief Clear Thinker at Clear Thought, commented, “All of our work is about helping small businesses meet ambitious growth plans. So, being able to put our integrated marketing expertise to use in helping them improve workplace health is really exciting. We’ve been asked to prove the concept, and we’re looking forward to demonstrating just how powerful the latest digital communications techniques can be in business today.”

 Health4Work can now be found at:

‣            http://www.health4work.nhs.uk            http://blog.health4work.nhs.uk//

‣            http://twitter.com/health4work