Business attitudes towards workplace health and wellbeing have changed significantly over the last few years, and the challenges posed by the pandemic have shone a further spotlight on this. With the full impact of COVID-19 only just beginning to emerge, many employers are seeing first-hand the importance of supporting employees beyond basic health and safety requirements.
Increasingly, employee health and wellbeing is no longer being seen as a ‘nice to have’ but rather as a fundamental business necessity, with a direct positive impact on productivity. Now, more than ever, it is vital not to take employee health and wellbeing for granted – or to underestimate the impact it can have on business performance.
The bottom line
As well as being the right thing to do in terms of running a sustainable business, taking care of your employees also stacks up financially. As an employer, you are legally required to protect your workers from the health risks of stress at work 1 and working with display screen equipment (DSE) such as computers and smartphones2. However, to really deliver financially, it’s important to view employee health and wellbeing far more broadly than this.
Evidence suggests that 12.7% of sick days3 can be attributed to mental health conditions, costing UK employers almost £35 billion per year4. Taking a proactive approach to both mental and physical health can directly boost the bottom line, helping to reduce absentee and sickness rates, increase staff engagement and retention, improve reward packages and recruitment, and boost productivity.
How to get started
Some businesses can be unsure how to get started on a health and wellbeing plan, how to do this affordably and without distracting from the all-important day job.
To help employers tackle this challenge, Bradford-based Sovereign Health Care has launched a useful new guide including quick, easy and affordable steps that employers can take to boost employee health and wellbeing.
Sovereign Health Care is a provider of health care cash plans to businesses and their employees. These enable employers to offer affordable, usable health and wellbeing cover, including an Employee Assistance Programme, as part of their benefit packages.
Free employee health and wellbeing resources
As an added benefit, Sovereign has recently launched their Resource Hub, which is provided free of charge to its business customers. It’s designed to support businesses’ health and wellbeing programmes by providing activities and materials to help employees make simple lifestyle changes that could lead to big improvements at home and at work.
For more information on where to start when it comes to employee health and wellbeing in your business, read our new guide at sovereignhealthcare.co.uk/business.
1 https://www.hse.gov.uk/stress/risk-assessment.htm
2 https://www.hse.gov.uk/msd/dse/
3 Mental health statistics: mental health at work | Mental Health Foundation
4 https://www.centreformentalhealth.org.uk/publications/mental-health-work-business-costs-ten-years