How to better support employees with chronic health conditions
It’s typical for gender, ethnicity, age and sexual orientation to be considered part of workforce inclusion strategy. It’s perhaps not so obvious that chronic health conditions should be.
When employees with chronic conditions view exiting the workforce as their only viable option, that’s a problem for everyone.
Overcoming this challenge involves designing a personalised health strategy that is inclusive of everyone, not just the already fit, well and engaged.
Data-led approaches
Research reveals that many conditions, such as diabetes, heart disease and respiratory diseases, are preventable.
Their leading risk factors are physical inactivity, poor nutrition, tobacco use and excessive alcohol.
It’s a problem that persists and continues to grow due to people living longer – largely thanks to medical advances – yet failing to manage their own lifestyle risk factors.
By chronic illness, we mean any illness that is persisting for a long time or constantly recurring.
The number of people leaving the workforce due to long-term sickness is at its highest since the 1990s.
Helping people manage their chronic condition and stay in work, improve their health behaviours and prevent chronic illness occurring in the first place, seem like very ‘inclusive’ goals for any organisation.
One size doesn’t fit all
Designing an employee health and wellbeing programme has traditionally taken a one-size-fits-all format; more led by national health trends and what competitors are doing, than by what a discrete workforce needs.
But growing evidence points to the fact that this isn’t working.
For example, research shows the majority of employers (58%) do not have a good understanding of their employee’s health and wellbeing needs.
Those who take a more personalised, data-led approach will be the ones who reap the rewards, says Paul Nattrass, commercial director at Inuvi, a provider of medical screening and health insight services, one of the Employee Benefits Claims and Medical Underwriting team’s trusted partners, whose services are eligible for wellbeing investment matching (WIM) funding.
WIM is where we at Generali look to help our group income protection clients fund a wellbeing initiative, where a specific need is identified.
3 tips for a successful data-driven health improvement programme
1. Make it inclusive
Make sure it covers the largest cross-section of the workforce as possible; ideally the whole workforce.
Dr Nisa Aslam, chief medical officer at Inuvi, adds: “Typically, the employees who engage with health and wellbeing programmes are those who are already meeting most – or maybe even all – established lifestyle guidelines, set by the NHS or the World Health Organisation.
“Key to any successful programme though is reaching the silent majority – those who perhaps haven’t had any health assessments, aren’t meeting the guidelines, may be asymptomatic right now but, if left unsupported, that could well change.
“Also, of course, the high risk individuals who are probably already suffering from symptoms of ill health and need support to prevent those symptoms worsening and / or secondary conditions developing,” adds Dr Aslam.
2. Make it easy
A good programme is about supporting and guiding your people, so make sure there aren’t any barriers to this.
Josh Hornyold, digital propositions lead at Inuvi, says: “There’s a perception that improving health is unaffordable and super high effort. That’s just not the case anymore.
“Advances in digital health offer cost-effective, engaging, consumer-friendly solutions.
“And employees can access these services without leaving their home or office. Although we do recommend encouraging breaks as beneficial support.”
3. Commit to it
Track, assess, iterate.
Hornyold adds: “It’s important to be realistic. Creating an effective solution isn’t going to happen after one year.
“Refining strategies, policies, interventions, benefits all takes time. The same goes for individual and behaviour change; it simply doesn’t happen overnight.
“In the short-term, it’s about identifying requirements. In the long-term, it’s about validating the interventions you’ve put in place – measuring progress and making adjustments – through yearly analysis of consistent HR and health metrics.
“A standardised set of data is key to tracking the trends and, eventually, the correlations,” he adds.
To access a free recording of Generali UK’s full 40-min webinar, entitled ‘A data-informed approach to de-risking your workforce’ in partnership with Inuvi, please email [email protected]
In partnership with Generali Employee Benefits Network
Generali Employee Benefits' solutions are to protect and enhance the wellbeing of their workforce.
