Member Article

Small firms 'promote healthy lifestyle'

Owners of small firms are keeping up with big business by encouraging their workers to lead healthy lifestyles, a report has found. According to the research by Standard Life Healthcare, half of small business owners believe that by encouraging their employees to be healthy, they are ensuring fewer days off sick and improved staff loyalty.

More than three quarters of small employers also said they believe businesses should be directly involved in their employees’ wellbeing.

Three quarters of workers said they would find it more attractive to work for an employer who supported its employees’ health and wellbeing, with nearly 60% saying it would improve their loyalty, half saying employee health would be improved, and just under half adding the number of days they take off sick would be reduced.

Mike Hall, Standard Life’s chief executive, said: “Owner managers are as concerned about retaining staff and about staff sickness as they are about keeping their ideas safe - and those staff concerns are greater than those about the security of company property, showing how high up the agenda people are.

“Our research shows that employers are taking action to consider employee health and wellbeing as an important factor in managing the risk posed by not doing so. This approach was once seen as something that was most relevant to large corporations, and many wellbeing services and products reflected that.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .