Employee wellness programmes: what are they and do they work?

Being part of a healthy and satisfied workforce impacts the way a person works, their attendance, how they perform at their job and the morale of an organisation. This is why more employers are investing in employee wellness programmes.

What constitutes an employee wellness programme?

An employee wellness programme features workplace practices backed by science, that are designed to create a healthier workplace or home working environment, to cost-effectively improve healthy employee behaviour, bring about employee wellbeing and boost the overall productivity of an organisation. The success of these programmes greatly depends on their ability to move beyond the feel-good wellness perspective and focus on a results-driven wellness approach, that produces tangible health and business benefits. An effective wellness programme extends much further than gym memberships, smoking cessation incentives and health smoothies - it addresses, promotes and integrates the various areas of wellbeing that are necessary for holistic health.

An example of a comprehensive employee wellness programme is Healthy Company - Discovery's digitally-enabled, employee assistance programme and wellness solution. Healthy Company identifies and proactively supports both at-risk employees and those who are well, throughout their work-life journey across four dimensions of wellbeing: physical, financial, emotional and legal support. With working from home being the new post-pandemic normal for many employees, the programme has extended itself beyond traditional wellbeing solutions. Discovery client engagement findings have shown that when home-based employees feel lonely, disconnected or distracted by home responsibilities - they have been reaching out and engaging with Healthy Company for guidance and support.

In an effort to determine the effects of a well-designed employee wellness programme , WellSteps - an Americanhealthcare company providing evidence-based wellness solutions - conducted extensive research on the subject. Their findings included the following:

• Cardiovascular risk factors, depression and stress of employees were reduced
• Their physical activity, nutrition, and sleep improved
• Chronic disease was reduced and, in some cases, reversed
• Lower absenteeism was noted due to fewer health risk factors, an increase in physical activity and lowered stress levels

With insights like these in mind, there is a range of valid reasons to have a comprehensive wellness programme in place. These are some of them:

Employee wellness lowers absenteeism

There is a clear connection between having a comprehensive employee wellness programme in place and reduced absenteeism among staff members. Employees who take up and maintain healthier behaviour in an effort to control their blood pressure, sugar, cholesterol and stress levels are known to take less sick leave.

Less chronic diseases reduce healthcare costs

Being able to access the right tools, information and motivation through an employee wellness programme helps employees make a positive move towards adopting healthier behaviour such as increasing their physical activity, eating healthier, not smoking and moderating their alcohol intake. This positive health shift leads to reduced health risks like high blood pressure, glucose and cholesterol, excess weight and chronic disease among employees and in turn, lower healthcare costs.

A high employee morale is beneficial to everyone

Employee morale is essentially the general attitude, satisfaction and overall outlook of employees during their time at an organisation or business. An employee that is satisfied and motivated tends to have high morale. To understand the value of having these employees, it's best to approach this from the opposite end of the spectrum and consider the cost of having employees with little to no enthusiasm, low job satisfaction and a negative outlook. With low employee morale, client service tends to dip, the quality of products and services suffer and problems may multiply as poor morale breeds more of itself as employees do not work independently from one another. High employee morale, while almost impossible to evaluate, is an extremely important benefit of wellness in an organisation. This may be why many companies with high-quality wellness programmes tend to perform better financially.

Healthier employees are more productive

Generally speaking, a healthier employee is a more productive employee. Two professors at the University of California confirmed this by performing a sample study involving workers throughout the Midwest at commercial laundry plants that were implementing employee wellness programmes. Their findings noted a 4% increase in overall productivity during the remaining year and employees, who were initially sick, significantly increased their productivity with a 10.8% change in output. Workers who were healthy at the start of the study were able to get more done during the workday after participating in the wellness programme.

Discovery's research also shows that globally, 1 in 4 adults are not active enough and 10% of people die from causes due to a lack of physical activity. Locally, we know that around half of South African adults live sedentary lifestyles - more than double the global average of 23% - making us one of the most inactive countries in the world, below Colombia, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Malaysia. Addressing diet and physical activity in the workplace has the potential to improve not only your health and that of your employees, but can also enhance productivity.

Over and above the boost in productivity brought about by implementing an employee wellness programme, an organisation also saves money on the costs of absenteeism among employees, overtime to cover absent employees, as well as the financial implications of having to train replacement employees.

Further research based on a survey of Britain's healthiest companies shows that healthier people (those with a better Vitality Age result) perform better on a range of important outcomes, from stress management to sleep and productivity. These findings support that a company that addresses the main causes of non-communicable diseases (lack of physical activity, poor nutrition and smoking) can boost their bottom line just by making employees healthy. Their results also showed that healthier employees were ultimately happier people, compared to those who were not in good health.

It all begins with you

It is every business owner's wish is to reduce the days of productivity that are lost due their employees' ill-health. The question is: where do you start? You can begin with yourself and join Vitality, the world's leading science-based behavioural-change programme that encourages and rewards you for simply making healthier choices in life.