COVID-19 has brought into sharp focus the role of business in supporting the health and wellbeing of the nation. From larger businesses to SMEs, firms across the country have a role to play in creating a healthier, more productive workforce, through the prioritisation of employee health.
Working days lost to ill-health cost the UK economy £300bn a year. Business playing a greater role in supporting workforce health can reduce this by 10-20%, saving £60bn per year. But that’s not all. Prioritising employee health also supports recruitment, job satisfaction and retention - all key to establishing a competitive advantage.
Use this roadmap to make progress on your business’ journey to reduce ill-health in your workforce. And, in turn, do your part to drive a stronger, more productive economy.
Discover
- The key stages on the journey to developing a leading a health offer
- The questions you can ask your business
- A selection of resources to support you to take the next step.
- Step 1
Explore and understand
An increased focus on business-led health interventions, through more targeted and improved health offers for employees, is an essential tool for achieving such outcomes.
Ask questions
- How does your business define its employee health offer?
- How is employee health currently prioritised?
- Do your HR strategy and internal structures prioritise employee health?
- Who is responsible for your employee health offer?
- When was the last time you reviewed your employee health offer?
- Does your business have open conversations about health and wellbeing?
- Does your business recognise the case for improving employee health?
Take action:
- Add employee health to the agenda topic of staff forum/HR meetings
- Embed employee health and wellbeing into central business strategy planning, ensuring senior leaders are aware of the importance of workplace health and wellbeing
- Allocate the management of your employee health offer as a key responsibility
- Make use of the resources in this roadmap to develop your employee health offer.
Read:
- Step 2
Know your baseline
Businesses are required by law to provide certain statutory provisions. This includes sick pay, maternity and paternity leave and pensions.
Ask questions:
- Are you aware of your statutory obligations?
- Do you know where you can find out more?
- What support do your employees need that is specific to your type of work/sector?
- Are you aware of all the elements that constitute an employee health offer?
Take action:
- Speak to human resources colleagues to understand and satisfy your businesses’ obligations and specific industry requirements
- Ensure a process is implemented to monitor any changes in regulation that will impact your businesses’ legal requirements, so that you can respond accordingly.
Read:
- Step 3
Quantify your offer
All businesses provide a health offer to their employees. This ranges from statutory requirements to more advanced employee health offers. In order to understand what more you might be able to do for your employees, you will need to know what you currently offer.
Ask questions:
- Does your business offer sick pay above statutory requirements?
- How many sick days do your employees currently take?
- Are there any other sickness or absence patterns?
- How many hours/days does your business loose to sick days?
- Does your business provide private medical insurance?
- Is your health offer available to all staff? Do roles have different access?
- Does your offer include support to encourage physical activity?
- Does your business have provisions to support the financial wellbeing of your staff?
Take action
- Attend CBI events to speak with other businesses in your industry
- Set up an internal working groups/forums to understand employee expectations on health and listen to the needs your employees have.
Read:
- Step 4
Develop and implement initiatives
There are provisions beyond the statutory minimum that your business could provide that support physical, mental and financial health, as well as overall d wellbeing.
Examples include:
- Enhanced sick pay (OSP)
- Dental/Optical Enhanced maternity/paternity
- Mental Health support/provision
- Financial support
- Flu vaccination reimbursement
Ask questions:
- Do you know what the specific needs of your workforce are?
- Do you know where you can find out? Does the health offer prioritise prevention or just reactive measures?
- What are the most cost-effective ways you can increase your business’ health offer?
- Could your health offer increase your business’ attractiveness as an employer? Or aid retention?
Take action:
- Understand the areas your business could support employees beyond statutory requirements
- Some provisions you could consider include (not exhaustive):
- Cycle to work
- Deposit help schemes
- Moving days
- Season ticket loan
- Gym flex
- Private medical insurance
- Enhanced maternity or paternity pay/leave
- Counselling sessions
Read:
- Mind - mental health at work
- StepChange - debt advice
- StepChange - cost of living hub
- CBI - keep mental health front of mind: how firms can prioritise employees’ mental health
- BITC - mental health for employers toolkit
- CIPD - employee financial wellbeing
- Aviva - financial wellbeing in the post-pandemic workplace
- MHAW - building mental health in construction
- MHAW - mental health for small businesses
- MHAW - mental health in the financial sector
- MHAW - mental health in the legal profession
- Step 5
Go the extra mile
Beyond the extensive list of provisions given above that you could offer to support your employees, could your business also become a champion of businesses doing more in health? Whether that be by amplifying the case for change, or by going above and beyond in your business’ heath offer.
Going to extra mile could include:
- Fertility and reproductive support
- Health screening (e.g. cancer screening)
Ask questions:
- Are there peers in your industry leading the way on workforce health?
- What premium health provision could you provide your employees? E.g. reproductive health support
- Where could your business lead the way?
- Are there provisions not typically offered by your industry that you could champion?
- Does your employee health offer reflect an integration of work and private life?
Take action:
- Understand the importance of supporting your employees’ private lives and the impact this can have on work life and productivity
- Learn from businesses with leading health offers
- Share your pioneering provision ideas with the CBI.
Read:
- Employee benefits - how to support employees going through fertility treatment in the workplace?
- BBC -how fertility became a workplace perk
- Macmillan - training and support for employers.
- Step 6
Test, adjust, repeat
It can be difficult to quantify the impact an offer has on a workforce health with a number of variables and causations to consider.
Recording data such as sickness absences and reason for sickness such as mental health or back pain etc. could all help you identify where your business’ provisions should be focused.
Ask questions:
- What would success look like for your business?
- Are there specific KPIs that would demonstrate improvement?
- What tools are available to measure employee sentiment on the health offer over time?
- Is there evidence or feedback from employees that shows your current health offer supports your workforce?
- Have the changes you’ve made to your health offer provided any positive outcomes?
Take action:
- Understand the areas of employee sickness patterns; identify reasons for poor ill health
- Ensure that you monitor the regulatory environment, making use of incentives for workforce health interventions
- Establish what success looks like in your business
- Reflect on your current offer and any progress already made
- Ensure internal processes and colleagues responsible for employee health are flexible and able to address new health challenges amongst the workforce quickly.
Share
- Share your insight and case studies with the CBI to support this ongoing work.
- Step 7
Inspire and influence others
Ask questions:
- What initiatives can you get involved in or lead to inspire action in your sector or the broader business community?
Take action:
- Share resources you use with your peers
- Attend CBI events and share your story.
Read:
CBI – improving workforce wellbeing.