Birmingham Workplace Champions Programme

Over 150 organisations across Birmingham are already building healthier, more productive workplaces. Here’s how to join them.

The Birmingham Workplace Champions Programme is a city-wide initiative supporting employers to put health and wellbeing at the heart of how they operate not as a policy statement, but as something that genuinely changes how people feel about coming to work.

Since launching in September 2024, the programme has worked with more than 150 businesses across ten sectors in Birmingham. It is free to join, practical in its approach and built around what organisations can actually do, not what looks good on a wellness strategy document.

Delivered by Optima UK one of the UK’s most experienced providers of workplace training and development the programme combines specialist expertise, one-to-one coaching and a growing network of employers who are sharing what works and learning from each other in real time.

What the Programme Has Already Delivered

Since September 2024, the Birmingham Workplace Champions Programme has:

Engaged more than 150 businesses across the city
Reached employers across more than 10 industry sectors
Built a city-wide network of trained and active Workplace Champions
Provided expert-led workshops, coaching, diagnostics and peer learning to organisations of all sizes

This is not a programme that is still finding its feet. It has a track record, a growing community and a clear model that is already creating measurable change across Birmingham’s business landscape.

What Is a Workplace Champion and What Does the Role Actually Involve?

A Workplace Champion is someone inside your organisation who takes on responsibility for driving health and wellbeing forward — not as a HR function or a tick-box exercise, but as a genuine cultural priority.

That does not mean adding a significant burden to someone’s existing role. It means giving one or more of your people the knowledge, the confidence and the support network to make wellbeing a visible and consistent part of how your organisation operates.

Champions do not need to be senior leaders, although senior buy-in matters. They can be managers, team leaders or employees who have a genuine interest in the health and culture of the people around them. What they need is the right backing — and that is exactly what this programme provides.

Through the programme, your Workplace Champion will:

Develop the skills and knowledge to promote health and wellbeing effectively within your organisation
Receive one-to-one coaching support to build confidence and work through specific challenges
Access expert webinars, workshops and a resource library to inform and support their work
Connect with Champions from across Birmingham to share ideas, approaches and what is actually working
Use workplace diagnostic tools to understand where your organisation is now and where to focus next
Influence leaders, managers and colleagues to create positive and lasting change

Why Organisations Across Birmingham Are Getting Involved

The businesses joining this programme are not doing so because they have a problem. Many of them are already doing good work on health and wellbeing. They are joining because they want to do it better — more consistently, more confidently and with the backing of a specialist team and a peer network rather than trying to figure it out alone.

The benefits organisations are reporting include:

Stronger employee engagement and a more positive workplace culture
Reduced absence and improved retention as wellbeing becomes embedded rather than bolted on
More confident managers and leaders who understand how to support their teams effectively
Access to specialist expertise that would cost significantly more to access independently
A visible commitment to employee health that supports recruitment and employer brand

And because the programme is free to access, the investment is time and commitment, not budget.

Who the Programme Is For?

The Birmingham Workplace Champions Programme is open to employers of any size operating in Birmingham. There is no minimum headcount and no requirement to have existing health and wellbeing provision in place. The programme is designed to meet organisations where they are whether that is starting from scratch or building on what is already there.

Sectors currently represented in the programme include manufacturing, professional services, hospitality, retail, education, healthcare, logistics, construction, technology and the voluntary sector. If your organisation employs people in Birmingham, this programme is relevant to you.

Delivered by Optima UK. A Track Record You Can Point To

The Birmingham Workplace Champions Programme is delivered by Optima, part of one of the East Midlands’ most established recruitment and workforce development businesses.

Optima’s training division brings together in excess of 20 qualified specialists spanning leadership and management, employment law and HR, mental health and MHFA-accredited qualifications, neurodiversity, DISC profiling, operational excellence, lean manufacturing, digital and AI adoption, and personal performance and pressure management. Many of our specialists have come from the industries they train in which means the guidance your Champion receives is grounded in genuine understanding of how workplaces actually operate, not just how they should in theory.

Alongside the Birmingham Workplace Champions Programme, Optima currently delivers the Work Well Live Better programme commissioned by Worcestershire County Council Public Health, and has a track record of delivering government-commissioned and publicly funded workplace health and development programmes across the UK.

When you join this programme, you are not joining a pilot. You are joining a programme delivered by an organisation with the expertise, the infrastructure and the proven approach to make it count.

Ready to Get Involved?

Joining is straightforward. Get in touch with the team, tell us a little about your organisation and we will take it from there. There is no lengthy application process and no commitment required before you have had a conversation with us about whether this is the right fit.

If you are an employer in Birmingham who wants to build a healthier, more productive workplace and access the expertise, coaching and community to do it properly this programme is for you.

Call us: 0116 303 3560 or Email: workplacechampions@optima-uk.com