Health and wellbeing strategies would not exactly be on the tip of the tongue of the HR profession when reviewing how to drive up their employee engagement. However, increasingly organisations are looking towards supporting the health of their employees to help improve business performance, demonstrating added value to their employees and ultimately improving the levels of employee engagement and attendance at work.
In the UK, there has never been a more relevant time to review such an approach. With average absence rates running at 1.8% in the private sector and 2.7% in the public sector (source: Office of National Statistics) there is a real business case to take action.
A recent report from the Centre of Economic and Business Research shows that workplace absence is costing the UK economy £18bn in lost productivity. This is part of an increasing trend that has seen workplace absence increase year-on-year since 2011 – having previously been on a downward trend since 1993. As a result, the report predicts that the cost of absence will increase to £21bn in 2020, and increase to £26bn in 2030.
An estimated 141.4 million working days were lost because of sickness or injury in the UK in 2018, the equivalent to 4.4 days per worker. (Source: Office of National Statistics)
Health and Wellbeing has never traditionally sat within HR departments, resting - usually on a dusty shelf - within health and safety departments. However, there has been a definite increase in this area, with more HR departments recognising that health and wellbeing can be a key element of an effective HR Strategy. Indeed, the recently launched “Choices” product from Investors in People will review the whole HR strategy within an organisation and as part of this will specifically cover health and wellbeing.
There is definitely a strong business case for large organisations to appoint a qualified occupational health professional, with their health and wellbeing strategy focused on both reactive and proactive initiatives.
The more reactive strategies would be those traditionally aligned to managing sickness absence. The policies and process in place to help manage attendance, support individuals back to work through re-deployment plan and phased returns with more punitive action, where required, for those who have regular attendance issues.
The proactive side of wellbeing can bring out all sorts of creative ideas and can be relatively low cost. One of the most effective ways of funding health and wellbeing strategies is to opt for a company funded healthcare cash plan. These have been around for years but many organisations don’t understand the range of benefits these plans can offer and how to make the best use of them.
A healthcare cash plan can start from as little as 50p per week and most plans usually have core benefits such as dental care, optical care and employee assistance programmes. Plans also may have physiotherapy, chiropody and consultations included. The best plans are those which also allow for more holistic therapies such as massage and reflexology.
The plans work by allowing employees to claim a refund from the plan from a treatment that they have undertaken. For example, the plan may allow up to £50 in optical to be re-claimed, the employee simply produces a receipt and depending on the scheme can claim up to 100% of their treatment if its is £50 or less. Where the company funds higher amount then the amounts which can be claimed are greater. In many cases the employee can opt to increase the cover and add their partners and families. Often children younger than 18 are routinely covered for free.
The benefits of such schemes are huge, having a full employee assistance programme can help ensure employees get immediate assistance for any issues which may affect their attendance and performance at work. Moving on from this they can access the scheme to assist with paying for a consultation to understand more quickly about an illness that they may have, the schemes can also be used to offset the excess charges where the employee already has private medical care.
By investing in such plans, organisations can use this strategy as part of any pay negotiations. Its the sort of proposal that would be looked at favourably by Trade Unions, and by investing for example £30 per head you could offer your employees around £250 in benefits based on the mostly commonly sought treatments, and even more of a saving where the employee has specific health issues.
The other advantage of such schemes is that they can be used to fund a range of activities within the workplace to promote health and wellbeing. For example, you may invite wellbeing professionals into the workplace and organise chiropody during working hours, or on-site clothed massages or smoking cessations groups. Individuals would simply need to book appointments during their breaks and attend for the treatment, often at a negotiated price by the organisation, pay for the treatment then claim back from their cash plan.
The benefit for the employee is not having to take time off or use personal time to attend for appointments and having some or all of the treatment funded. For the employer there is greater employee engagement and productivity as the employee is at work and is feeling valued by the
organisation. The long-term benefits for both are improved overall health.
It is clear that more needs to be done by employers in terms of health and well being, and there are significant opportunities to implement strategies which are fairly straightforward and which can deliver real benefits for organisations.
Other initiatives to consider are;
- Free or subsidised healthy food options
- Fresh fruit days
- Seminars on mental health to ensure this becomes an ongoing and open matter within your workplace.
- Finishing early on a Friday once per month
- Flexible work arrangements
- Look to run health and wellbeing weeks
- Partnerships with Gyms for discounted membership
- Hold walking meetings
Not taking action is simply not an option if organisations are truly committed to delivering the best value from their employees and maximising the opportunity to increase levels of employee engagement.
