It’s probably fair to say that Dublin-based John Ryan and his Belfast-based business partner Peter Morris couldn’t have picked a much better time to launch their Healthy Place To Work concept on a worldwide basis.
One of the undisputed results of the Covid-19 pandemic will be that the future of work, ways of working and workplaces will be changed…and changed forever. Put simply, Healthy Place to Work is a global standard for workplace health certification in the same vein as global standards covering areas like quality, training and the environment. But it’s a concept that goes way further than a form-filling exercise that leads to a framed certificate down the line. Instead, it looks at just about every aspect of working practices, the working environment and employee well-being. John Ryan, who came up with the original idea for Healthy Place to Work, has teamed up with TJ Byrne and ex-BT senior executive Peter Morris to launch the business from Northern Ireland. “2020 has shown the importance of health more than ever before and underlines how business needs to focus resources where they are needed most in order to thrive,” says Ryan. “This means looking at a strategic level at how the health of employees impacts directly on business. Doing that will enable more companies to recover from Covid.” Ryan tells the story of how Healthy Place to Work came about and of the influences that lie behind it.