Partner Article

Employee health is not about short-term gimmicks

The healthcare agenda for business has shifted significantly over the last 20 years. Nowadays there’s an expectation that employers will offer a remuneration package that provides for employees’ health and wellbeing needs. For attracting and retaining the right people, this can be key – especially in light of the current UK employment environment where some businesses are struggling to get suitable candidates to take on vacant posts.1

Of course, not only do health and wellbeing benefits enable an employer to stand out from the crowd where, for many, competition for talent is fierce but they also play a critical role in building and maintaining a high performing workforce.

Stepping back, the consequences of ill health can be crippling for a business, with considerable direct costs arising from sickness absence (estimated by the CIPD to cost UK employers £554 per employee per year, with employees off work sick on average 6.9 days a year2). There’s also the indirect costs too associated with presenteeism, where employees attend work when unwell and perform below par. According to the Centre for Mental Health, £15bn of the annual £26bn cost to business of mental ill health at work is attributable to reduced productivity of employees when at work.3 So why wouldn’t businesses want to address these business critical issues?

Employers and employees alike can appreciate the benefit of a fast track to diagnosis, treatment and care and a timely return to health and work. But there’s more to employee health and wellbeing – namely, nipping health risks in the bud before they materialise or grow into a greater problem.

Indeed, results from our own research indicate that almost half of business leaders acknowledge that preventive health – to support and improve individuals’ physical and mental wellbeing and encourage healthy behaviour – will be key to better health in the workplace over the next five years. They also say that they think that mental health, obesity/high body mass index and high blood pressure will be the biggest challenges to employee health over this time.4

Key to implementing a holistic health and wellbeing programme is to understand the scale and dynamics of the health risks of your organisation. In addition, better understanding of the drivers of employee health and wellbeing will help you introduce interventions that address the particular requirements of your business. An engaging programme that tackles key health risks such as high blood pressure and body mass index, complemented by guidance on small but significant – and lasting – lifestyle changes can make a big difference to individuals’ health and wellbeing.

There’s much more to managing workplace wellbeing than simply making employees happy. Knowing and getting the measure of your risks will enable you to improve the performance and productivity of your people.

Sources

1 UK Commission for Employment and Skills (May 2016), Employer Skills Survey 2015: UK Results

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/525444/UKCESS_2015_Report_for_web__May_.pdf

“…a growing number of jobs are being left unfilled because companies can’t find the right people with the right skills…”

2 CIPD (2015), Absence Management 2015 [p4]

http://www.cipd.co.uk/binaries/absence-management_2015.pdf

3 Centre for Mental Health (2007). Mental health at work: developing the business case:

http://www.incorporasaludmental.org/images/doc/D_ENG_EMP_DOCU_GUIA_0036_Developing_the_business_case.pdf

4 Online survey of 1,000 purchasing decision makers, conducted March 2016 by market research agency, Atomik

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Chris Horlick, Distribution Director for AXA PPP healthcare .