12 Sep 2016

Embracing health and wellbeing is vital

Employee wellbeing is being pushed to the forefront of the HR agenda, which isn’t surprising given the fact that sick days cost the UK economy £26bn a year. There is now a growing understanding of the impact of physical and mental health conditions on workplace performance.

The current landscape

Workplace health and wellbeing has also long been a priority for government, highlighted by the appointment of Dame Carol Black as national director of work and health in 2006.

In 2008 Dame Carol published her report ‘Working for a healthier tomorrow’ which concluded that to help improve the health and wellbeing of the nation’s workforce, practices such as early intervention from employers, flexibility around employees returning to work, expansion of occupational health services and the introduction of the ‘fit note’ as opposed to the sick note should be adopted.

Since the report was published the landscape has continued to change: the 2008 financial crisis, austerity measures and budget cuts. Although NHS budgets were protected we’ve seen the lowest increase in spending in the NHS’s history since 2011, only increasing by 1.3% year on year as opposed to the long term average of 3.6%.

There is now a greater imperative on employers to address workplace health and wellbeing because of issues such as strain on the NHS, an ageing population and an increase in incidence and reporting of health problems.

Why organisations should act

Health problems can result in greater costs in terms of increased absence and lower levels of productivity. The CIPD found that the average cost of absence per employee, per year is £554, and the average number of sick days per employee, per year is 6.9 days.

There is also a growing body of research which shows that employee wellbeing leads to better performance, can be a source of competitive advantage, innovation and growth and is growing in importance for attracting talent (PWC, 2013).

Furthermore, academic research is beginning to show that companies investing in health and wellbeing initiatives tend to outperform on the stock exchange to those which are not.

One such study tracked the stock market performance of publicly traded companies in the US which had strong health and wellbeing programmes. By using past performance of the companies over a 13 to 15-year period and simulating their responses to the stock market’s performance with a theoretical $10,000 investment, the study found that those companies investing in health and wellbeing programmes outperformed the Standard & Poor’s 500 largest US companies (Fabius, Thayer, Konicki, 2013).

What can you do?

The first thing you need to do is to get senior management buy in and demonstrate that improving employee health and wellbeing will have a positive impact on business performance.

If you are seeking investment from the business for a health and wellbeing programme, you may well be required to write a business case.

To learn more about building a business case download SimplyHealth's white paper, Building a business case for a healthy workforce. It contains a six step framework to help you construct your business case and get that all important buy in.

This article was provided by Simplyhealth.