Gone are the days where employers turned a blind eye to health issues. The last 20 years has seen a phenomenal and fundamental change in the way organisations think about the health of their workforce. Now, employee assistance programmes (EAPs) are a familiar feature of the modern workplace, giving employees access to a range of support services at the touch of a button.
It wasn’t always like this, though. EAPs and corporate health strategies experienced a meteoric rise around the ‘90s as organisations started to better understand how their employees’ health challenges were impacting their business. This led to a huge amount of innovation as companies competed to create the best health strategies to support and optimise the health and wellbeing of their workforce.
While this had a hugely positive impact for many, in the years building up to the Covid-19 pandemic, employee wellbeing and EAPs gradually became a tick box exercise that many companies knew they had to have, but all too often had no cohesive strategy on.
Now is the perfect opportunity for employers and providers to look at the whole health of their employees in a completely new and different light. It’s an opportunity to hit ‘reset’ and build innovative, fit-for-purpose health strategies that help individuals take control of their whole health. To provide support that looks at both home and work life.
The pandemic has changed nearly every facet of our lives and health services need to reflect that. Many of us won’t ever go back into an office full time and it’s no longer enough to think of the concept of healthcare as dealing with sickness rather than health; employees are people with families, jobs, feelings and emotions, and what works on paper may not work when accounting for their realities.
All these factors, such as family, health, finances and work-life balance, make up our whole health and it is time employers look at the bigger picture of health. Our health and wellbeing and pressures of daily life can change from moment to moment, with different factors being more important at different times. So, how can employers use this opportunity to create a far richer health strategy?
Firstly, employers need to ask themselves tough questions and put the health, safety and wellbeing of employees firmly in the corporate crosshairs of their organisation, whilst also creating a strong internal culture that can help attract and retain talent. Wellness programmes come in many shapes and sizes and research shows that the most effective ones are not necessarily the most expansive and expensive. Instead, wellness programmes that are grounded in a solid understanding of how health and wellbeing issues manifest in each unique workplace often have the most impressive results. And those results benefit the business also.
Workplace wellness programmes can help to reduce organisations’ healthcare costs, absenteeism, and increase productivity gains. But, before investing in such programmes, employers first need to understand which issues result in the greatest loss for the organisation, for example, if there are increases in absenteeism or whether there are spiralling healthcare claims. Understanding organisational risk factors and workforce health profiles can play a diagnostic role in helping employers pinpoint the specific underlying drivers of ill health and reduced wellbeing. This planning phase is crucial before designing and executing any programme.
For providers, our industry is on the cusp of fundamental change in terms of how people can access care and support services. The pandemic has greatly accelerated the move towards digital. This demand shows no signs of abating as people become more receptive to the ease in which they can get medical help.
Virtual healthcare is at a similar developmental stage to where mobile banking apps were around a decade ago. The technology will take time to mature and become mainstream, but the pandemic has clearly accelerated this trend globally.
In time we will have sensors and other digital tools to help monitor people’s physical health and wellbeing remotely, as well as artificial intelligence and other technologies coming of age. But now is not the time to concentrate on digital bells and whistles. Now is the time for employers to create a cohesive whole health strategy to improve every aspect of people’s health in today’s world – not just focused on reactive physical care.