What is workplace health management and why does it concern me?

This article first appeared on our blog here.

The employment market is changing – and with it the demands on employers and employees. Complexity, flexibility and a fast-paced life can overstrain employees and lead to psychological and physical stress. To counteract this, more and more companies are turning to workplace health management.

But what is workplace health management exactly?

Workplace health management focuses on the sustainable and long-term health and performance of employees. This means integrating health issues into the mission statement and corporate culture as well as into the processes of a company. WHM tries not only to react to and improve already occurring problems and diseases, but also to strengthen healthy parts.

If you already considered implementing a WHM, you surely came across one of these 3 problems that we are all facing:

1. Unfortunately we are not ageless, especially not our bodies

By 2050, it is estimated that around 40 percent of a company’s employees will be between the ages of 50 and 64 years old. Why should this number worry you?

In many cases, employees, that have been in the company for a while, are invaluable or even indispensable to the company. They have professional experience and knowledge. As hard as we try, it cannot be denied that ageing has an impact on health and mental resilience. Start practicing health and sustainability as early as possible because the overall population is ageing and will continue to do so in the future.

2. You may have heard of absenteeism, but presenteeism might be your bigger opponent

Almost every second employee has gone to work sick, and this number is probably including you. Often the focus is on reducing absenteeism, but there is another, quite relevant problem: presenteeism.

Presenteeism is when employees appear at work despite being ill. Their reasons range from a fear of losing their job, to a sense of responsibility towards colleagues or the assumption that they are completely indispensable. According to research by the German Federal Statistical Office and Statista Research, the cost of presenteeism was even higher than the cost of days off work.

So to be clear: Low sickness rates in the company do not equal healthy staff. 

3. Your influence and the perception of the mental health in your company

In the past mental health problems were a taboo subject, whereas nowadays they are discussed more openly – even in the workplace. Being the number one reason for early retirement, the significance should not be underestimated.

But that’s not where it ends: depending on gender, age and analysis, mental health problems are one of the two most common reasons for sick leave and leads to the longest absence of employees. High time pressure, constant work routines, insufficient rest periods and even the behaviour of management - all of these can contribute to the health and stress factors of the employees.

What advantages will it bring?

You might wonder - if it’s voluntary and might bring challenges - why would you want to implement it? We have put together 4 advantages that should convince you to implement a WHM:

1. Employee health: Your employees will become healthier and you’ll prevent physical and mental ailments that have a direct impact on productivity.
2. Employee retention: With WHM measures you optimize the satisfaction in your company, create a pleasant working atmosphere and keep valuable employees in your teams.
3. Employer attractiveness: WHM contributes to your employer branding, increases your employer attractiveness and equips you to face the competition.
4. Cost reduction: By reducing absenteeism and presenteeism and increasing efficiency, you save costs in the long term.

… but that’s not all. Let’s take a look at the ROI and see the proven cost advantage:

You are convinced and ready to introduce WHM to your company? Here’s how to implement a structured and sustainable WHM in 4 steps: 

1. Analyse, analyse, analyse

Know what you have and know what you are looking for! Every company has individual needs and a WHM should be based on these. Therefore it is important to analyse prerequisites, requirements and possible problems in advance. You should not forget to take existing health benefits and health promotion measures into account. If this analysis shows that your employees have no needs and are happy and healthy then that’s even better.

2. When you figured out what your company needs, start planning

What are your strategic and operational objectives? What is to be achieved with the WHM? Do you want to introduce a preventive or corrective strategy? Those are only a few questions you need to be answering.

When implementing a WHM for the first time, you should not take up too many different areas at the same time. The goals you define directly influence the choice of WHM measures and depend on your individual needs as well as on the size of your company. Often the focus is primarily on strategic goals such as ROI, growth and cost reduction. 

3. Communication is key for implementation

There are two common problems that occur when wanting to implement health measures:

1. Benefits and health programs are mostly used by healthy and sporty employees, while inactive employees continue to show no participation.

And 2. The New Year’s Eve effect – As with New Year’s resolutions, employees may initially take advantage of the new offers, but after a certain period of time they’ll fall back into old habits.

Your employees are key! No matter how good your objectives and planning, without the cooperation of your employees the WHM will fail and won’t achieve positive results for the company. Employees should be informed and encouraged. There are several ways to do that. If the employee manages to make a habit of the behaviour, the probability of falling back into old patterns is lower. In this case, frequent repetition of activities over a period of time will help.

4. Last but not least: evaluate, optimize and repeat.

Whether you use employee surveys, interviews or regular reports on employee health. Processes and results should be continuously evaluated, optimized and repeated in order to obtain a meaningful result. It makes sense to use the same work area and groups of people in order to incorporate as few deviations as possible due to individual differences. Make sure to use a holistic approach in order to measure both physical and psychological aspects.

What is right for my company?

The measures you can take to improve corporate health are manifold – therefore it is important to be aware of the specific requirements in your company. Many companies already attach importance to healthy nutrition and sports, which is the right approach. No matter which option you choose, in order to reap long-term benefits, sustainability must be guaranteed. 

Healthy staff is a big investment for your company – so what are you waiting for?

This article first appeared on our blog here.