Protecting Employee Health: Prevention & Support

With skills and labour shortages affecting most UK industries, protecting employee health has never been more in the spotlight for organisations across the globe. But as research shows, many companies aren’t doing enough in this area, despite the advantages of providing the right employee benefits being plentiful.

[Related reading: Could Employee Benefits Help Alleviate Stress In The Workplace?]

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One In Five Employers Do Not Provide Ill-Health Prevention Support To Staff

Recent research by Group Risk Development (GRiD), the industry body for the group risk protection sector, has revealed that one in five (21%) employers do not have initiatives in place to help prevent their staff experiencing ill health. And this is despite many such initiatives existing.

Diagnostics, health screening, access to GPs, rehabilitation, apps to improve health behaviours, as well as lifestyle advice on nutrition, sleep, health, and fitness, are all readily available through employee benefits. Such initiatives can help support employee health and prevent serious conditions from developing.

When asked, employers that do provide wellbeing support and ill-health prevention said flexible working initiatives (28%), emotional support such as counselling (17%), and initiatives to help manage stress and mental health (16%) were the most helpful. Mental health first aiders, Private Medical Insurance and Employee Assistance Programmes were also cited as being useful by employers.

Katharine Moxham, spokesperson for GRiD, said: “When employers offer employee benefits that have preventative support built in, they’re demonstrating that they care about their staff’s long-term health and wellbeing. It also means that their employees will have the best chance of being able to access whatever new supportive developments arise in the future.”

Health And Wellbeing Programmes Improve Workplace Relationships

As if the benefits of preventing employees falling ill weren’t significant enough, separate research by the University of East Anglia (UEA), working in collaboration with insurance and investments company Vitality, found that participation in workplace health and welfare programmes can improve the quality of work relationships and reduce bullying.

In addition, the more employees engage with health and wellbeing programmes (HWPs), the more they benefit from better quality co-worker relationships. Furthermore, these employees also experience less bullying over time and enjoy better longer-term wellbeing and job satisfaction.

Publishing the findings in the British Journal of Management, lead authors Dr. Roberta Fida and Dr. Annilee Game, from UEA's Norwich Business School, said the evidence showed that promoting wellbeing interventions in the organisations has "unintended" positive consequences.

"When organisations invest in wellbeing they communicate care for their employees and this is reciprocated with more respectful interpersonal interactions. This in turn significantly reduces the onset of workplace bullying and improves longer-term mental and physical health as well as job satisfaction," said Dr Fida.

The three-year study used data from 7,785 UK employees across 64 organisations.

[Related reading: Employees Not Confident Discussing Health Issues As Organisations Look To Increase Spending]

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If you’re an employer that isn’t already offering preventative ill-health support, you should really be asking yourself why not? Get in touch with Premier Choice to find out what options are available to you.