Admiral Group, which is set to open it's new city centre offices in Queensway, Newport, in May, has been recognised by the Welsh Government for the health and wellbeing of its staff through the award of the Gold Corporate Health Standard.

Run by the Welsh Government through Healthy Working Wales, the Corporate Health Standard is the quality mark for workplace health promotion in Wales.

The standard has been developed to recognise good practice and to target the key preventable ill-health issues and the Health Challenge Wales priorities.

Admiral, which is the main sponsor of this year's City of Newport Half Marathon, which is taking place on Sunday, achieved the bronze level in 2010 and was aiming for silver. However, the assessors were so impressed by the work done at Admiral they awarded gold.

This was due to the improvements achieved by the company overall in terms of providing staff with a healthy supportive workplace where staff wellbeing is regarded as a driver for success.

Admiral people services manager Ceri Assiratti said: “The health and wellbeing of our staff is of paramount importance to us. We wanted to take part in the CHS assessment process to help us gauge our approach to health and wellbeing in relation to industry best practice. We were absolutely delighted to be awarded Gold as it shows that the schemes we have in place are effective and that we’re looking after our staff successfully.”

John Griffiths, chair of the panel from CHS which judged Admiral’s application, said: “It is the unanimous view of the assessors that Admiral is among the best, if not the best, organisations that we have ever visited in terms of a corporate approach to wellbeing. This was an exceptional submission and all the requirements of the Gold level of the CHS are comfortably met and the organisation is most worthy of the highest commendation."

Admiral has a Ministry of Health, tasked with maintaining and promoting a high quality of health and wellbeing in the workplace. During 2013, they worked with, among others, Stop Smoking Wales, Cardiff and Swansea Cycle Challenge and National Stress Awareness Day. They also promote Admiral’s free fruit programme, free gym passes, and health challenges. During 2013, the free gym passes were used more than 100,000 times by Admiral staff in South Wales.