Pay and Benefits

Employee health and wellbeing has not always been at the top of the workplace agenda. However, it is becoming increasingly apparent that this element of employee benefits has a significant role to play in staff engagement.

An effective wellness strategy can help to reduce any increases in health-related employee benefit costs and can positively impact on absence rates, while increasing productivity.

There are a number of benefits available that can support employees, such as private medical insurance (PMI) and Employee Assistance Programmes (EAPs). However, simple policies, such as healthy options in canteens and free fruit for staff, can be implemented to help staff recognise that employers do care.

There are three elements associated with wellbeing: physical, mental and financial. They are all important to ensuring a holistic approach to the benefits that an employer offers.

According to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) 2010 Absence Management survey, 46 per cent of firms have an employee wellbeing strategy. The report highlighted that the most commonly provided assistance is a counselling service. This is true across both the private and public sector.

Other, more expensive, health benefits include PMI and health screening. However, although PMI is offered by 80 per cent of employers in the private sector, it is not available to all employees as it tends to be reserved for those in senior roles. A third of firms also offered health screening for their employees.

Of the wellbeing benefits listed in the survey, the majority focused on physical and mental health. There was also a split between insurance products and more tangible benefits, such as onsite massages and in-house gyms. In order to get a holistic package some employers are beginning to offer financial advice, especially given the current economic climate where family budgets are being squeezed.

Over the past five years the awareness of employee wellbeing has grown extensively as more organisations recognise how such programmes can support their business. Ben Willmott, Employee Relations Adviser at the CIPD, believes that with the economic downturn employers have recognised the link between employee health and absence rates.

He says: “The recession has put people under pressure. They are doing more with less at work and at home, these factors have contributed to the increased awareness of employee wellbeing.”  

The economic climate has also impacted on what employers can offer and has caused them to look at alternatives to traditional pay rises.

“Employers don’t have to invest a lot of money, instead they are tapping into the imagination and skills of their staff. Low-cost initiatives can be valuable,” comments Ben.
These include schemes such as staff members running circuit training sessions or yoga classes. If employers support this type of initiative by promoting them through the staff intranet, although it is a relatively low-cost arrangement, they can still gain from the message that they are a concerned employer. It is also vital that employers focus on the importance of managers.

“Supporting workers psychologically is key to managing staff on a day-to-day basis,” adds Ben.

Despite this increase in awareness, according to the Simplyhealth Engaging Employees through Health and Wellbeing report, “76 per cent of employers do not correlate employee health and wellbeing to productivity.”

Conversely, the CIPD report showed some interesting correlations between those who evaluate the impact of their wellbeing programmes and those who intend to increase the amount of investment in such schemes.

The report surmises: “This implies that evaluations of wellbeing spend generally conclude that investing in wellbeing is worthwhile.”

Although the evidence is in favour of wellbeing benefits and programmes, many employers are reluctant to invest in such schemes. The Simplyhealth findings show that 93 per cent of employers do not measure the return on investment from employee benefits, and only a quarter say that they routinely ask their workforce about their health and wellbeing.

James Glover, Corporate Sales and Marketing Director at Simplyhealth, points out the difficulty in trying to measure the impact of these types of employee benefits.

He says: “At some levels you can look at absenteeism and speed of return to work. These are relatively simple to measure, and employers should be doing this and making the case for health benefits and initiatives to help in these areas.”

Other alternative measures are to look at engagement through employee surveys. Employers should be using these as an opportunity to ask workers about the state of their health and wellbeing and to gauge their awareness of the benefits available to them.

Nick Kemsley, Co Director of the Centre of HR Excellence at Henley Business School, believes that the Simplyhealth report shows that the impression an employer portrays around how much it cares about health and wellbeing is significant. He says there is a direct impact on staff loyalty. A total of 75 per cent of workers who felt that their employer cared a great deal described themselves as very loyal.

 

The findings from Simplyhealth showed that there is a perception gap as to whether employers care about the health and wellbeing of their staff, compared to this time a year ago. A total of 36 per cent of employers said they cared more, compared to only 11 per cent of employees who believed this to be true. This reveals a 25 per cent perception gap.

The report states: “The differences in opinion could mean that employees are not accessing important health and wellbeing benefits, and employers are not getting value from their investment.”

“Looking at the results, could a rebalancing by employers from more financial to non-financial vehicles for supporting health and wellbeing be behind this difference in views,” asks Nick.

James, however, believes that communication is the main reason for this gap.

“In some organisations, some health and wellbeing benefits/initiatives become wallpaper. Particularly in organisations where there is, for example a long-standing EAP or PMI scheme, the difficulty is that employers take their eye off the ball after the launch and their enthusiasm wanes,” he comments.

Companies need to ensure that they are continuously reminding employees of the benefits that they have on offer. This can be done in a number of ways including utilising the intranet, sending emails, giving out leaflets and running road shows in conjunction with benefit providers.

The current economic climate has put increased pressure on benefits professionals who are looking to implement a new wellbeing initiative. Not only do they have to justify any additional costs, but they have to get buy-in from senior management. There are also other factors that employers have to take into consideration.

“In addition there are some things coming down the track like auto-enrolment, where pension costs are going to increase for employers, where questions about returns on investment on particular staff costs are going to become even harder to answer,” says James.

The two elements that need to be fulfilled in order to make sure that a wellbeing programme is implemented is to look at whether there is something that can be measured in terms of return to work times, sick pay, etc. The other element is engagement.

Undoubtedly the economic downturn will also have had a financial impact on employees. Financial wellbeing is the area which receives the least attention from employers. Seminars on financial matters including pensions are low down on the employee benefits list, although employee discount schemes and salary sacrifice are offered by more than a quarter of employers.

The Simplyhealth report notes: “Taking time to help staff deal with the tough economy, and understand how to get the best value from their employee benefits, is an important part of caring for their overall wellbeing.”

Introducing an employee wellbeing scheme doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated.

“You need to stand back and think about the different threads that you want to bring together. It doesn’t necessarily have to cost a lot of money, it’s about the frame that you go out there with, and how you connect employees,” says Jill Cunnison HR, Benefits and Operations Manager at Capital One. “You should look at what you’ve got and how you can pull those strands together, and you need to make sure that your employees are aware that that is what you offer.”

Health and wellbeing benefits are essential if you want to promote an engaged workforce, which, in turn, will lead to a more productive and loyal staff. With increased pressures at work and at home, promoting health and wellbeing has never been so important.

Capital One has had a wellbeing strategy in place for a number of years entitled: Your Health Matters. Under this heading it has run a number of initiatives, ranging from flu jabs to seminars on work–life balance and nutrition.

Last year the credit card provider reassessed what it wanted to achieve with its wellbeing agenda, following an office move which brought all of its employees under one roof. As a result, it set about consulting them about what they would like implemented at the new site, and it soon became apparent that there was demand for an onsite gym.

The organisation asked what staff members would like to see in the facility to help them become engaged with what it was trying to achieve. As part of this, staff entered a competition to name the gym and finally “The Core” was selected. Out of the 800 employees based in Nottingham, half had been inducted to use the facility within two weeks of its opening.

Jill Cunnison HR, Benefits and Operations Manager at Capital One, says: “For us it’s really important to make sure that associates are on board with us so that they can have an input – rather than us standing back and simply giving associates a gym.”

In its recent employee survey 89 per cent of its workforce was satisfied with their health and wellbeing benefits, which was an increase since the opening of the gym in January 2011.

“What we’ve really tried to achieve is high value and high impact, but not necessarily high cost. For example, last year we ran a healthy eating week and one of the things we did was to decorate a trolley and walk around giving everybody a piece of fruit. This gave us a great opportunity to find out what else our associates wanted us to do with our health and wellbeing strategy,” explains Jill. “The key metrics for me are about how our associates perceive health and wellbeing which is flagged up through our employee survey. That is critical to us and is a key part of our agenda this year.”