Where is health & wellbeing on your agenda?

Health and wellbeing at work has gained a much higher place on the agenda for employers and individuals over the last few years. 

Government attention on the issue through its welfare reform agenda has helped put it firmly on the radar for organisations and barely a day goes by without mention of the issue in the media.

While the Government seems to have grasped the importance of health and wellbeing as a workplace issue – it has invested in employee happiness research and the significant Black and Frost Review into absence and health at work – not all employers feel the same.

There are some forward-thinking companies who are grasping the issue, taking a proactive approach to the health of their staff and reaping the associated benefits. But research suggests that some employers are only just starting to confront the issue and grasp the opportunity to improve the performance of their businesses.

The cost of poor employee wellbeing should alarm any leader: translating the impact of the sickness absence, reactive health costs and staff turnover gives the average organisation with 750 staff a bill of around £3,264,000 according to the energiseYou Employee wellbeing guide.

Employees know there is a problem. Research of over 2,000 UK employees, from energiseYou, shows 80% of people score just 40% with regards to their health and energy.

With sickness absence and stress levels rising across the UK, poor employee wellbeing represents an iceberg which looks set to hit UK business unless action is taken quickly.

So the opportunity is clear: employers need to turn their attention to helping their staff improve their health to support better business performance.

To better understand issues facing organisations around health and wellbeing at work we partnered with Edenred and asked almost 200 senior HR professionals what their organisations are thinking and doing in four key areas:

• Getting wellbeing on the agenda
• Making the link between wellbeing and performance
• Practical actions to improve health and wellbeing
• measuring the impact

The purpose of this report is to share this insight and draw on best practice to establish a framework so that organisations can improve the performance of their business.

For a copy of the survey please email contactus@energiseyou.com