While there aren’t any big surprises, McKinsey Health Institute’s recent report Thriving workplaces: How Employers Can Improve Productivity and Change Lives reminds us, once more, of the benefits of investing and reinvesting in employee health and wellness.
The business-focused report doesn’t taut any new employee benefits but rather looks at both bottom line opportunities and the potential improved economic value of investing in workplace health.
Citing numbers that show only 57% of employees reporting good holistic health, the authors dangle future possibilities of enhanced employee health initiatives that, done well, could add up to 12 trillion in global economic growth.
McKinsey’s research was conducted collaboration with the World Economic Forum- and speaks to the value of enhanced employee health initiatives. The report suggests that while benefits from increased employee wellness can vary depending on industry, location and number of employees, positive results still exist in some shape or form for most-if not all—businesses. Positively impacted areas:
• Direct costs: A healthier workforce usually leads to reduced absenteeism and lower healthcare costs.
• Employee retention: Research shows that companies fostering wellness in their culture experience lower employee turnover rates than those who do not.
• Regulatory considerations: As regulatory agencies focus on employee health and wellness, pressures keep mounting. Investing is employee health and wellness it can increase a firm’s reputation and make it attractive to investors.
• Increased productivity: It’s been proven that there’s a correlation between health-related interventions and productivity improvements. Simply put, happier employees tend to be more productive.
• Company performance: Research from the University of Oxford shows that companies with a employee high well being score report higher profits, better return on assets and a higher valuation.
The report suggests that prioritizing employee well-being can have many benefits to an organization….from uncovering new performance gains and allowing a firm to build a better, more adaptable and resilient workforce.
As the benefits from these investments can be increasingly hard to track, the report outlines several ways to address and measure employee health that can be adopted:
1) Get a starting point: Understand the baseline health of your employees, and correspond this to the value of the investment, and what could be lost if you do nothing.
2) The big picture: Develop a long-term, systematic approach will evidence based health interventions. One-off initiative will fail to achieve the benefits as outlines above.
3) Start small: Set up pilot initiatives and test these strategies. Refine and learn from the findings of these pilots to develop a well-being strategy that delivers the most impact for your company.
4) Measure: Select three to five Key Performance Indicators that allow you to measure workforce well-being and organizational performance. This is so the benefits from any new initiative can be clearly showcased.
5) Gain leadership buy-in and commitment: Top-down change that results in making employee well being a strategic priority. This will allow for the shift in organizational culture needed to boost employee morale and improve performance.
To read the full report: mckinsey.com/mhi.
Images: McKinsey Health Institute (MHI). CanStock.
