Promoting employee well-being improves returns, studies shows
Investing in the health and well-being of employees can improve the financial performance of an organisation, research has suggested.
Canadian health and labour economist Emile Tompa has said that several international studies have demonstrated the positive effects of health promotion programmes on a company’s returns.
According to Tompa, research evaluating the economic impacts of promoting employee well-being has shown that many measures have proven to have a cost-benefit. The programmes evaluated typically fell into one of three areas: health promotion, disease management and wellness; disability management; or ergonomics.
The research shows that between 65-85 per cent of the programmes evaluated showed positive returns within a few years of their implementation.
Tompa said: “Traditionally, human capital has been interpreted as education and skills. Today, health and well-being are seen as an increasingly important part of human capital.”
Meanwhile, research conducted by the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health (FIOH) has suggested that decreasing the mental and social strain at work can reduce the risk of contracting an illness.
The study found that mental health and musculoskeletal disorders are the most common reasons for work disability pensions in Finland, and the risk of employees claiming work disability pension due to these issues can be reduced by 20 and 35 per cent respectively.
FIOH and University College London Professor Mika Kivimäki said: “The study investigated how the improvement of employees’ potential to influence work time could reduce early exit from work.
“The prevention of cardiovascular and other chronic diseases is vital for extending working careers.
“Controlling the psychosocial factors of work may help reduce early retirement due to illness. Currently, however, systematic research of concrete ways in which to decrease psychosocial workload at workplaces is largely lacking.”
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In this episode of the Safety & Health Podcast, ‘Burnout, stress and being human’, Heather Beach is joined by Stacy Thomson to discuss burnout, perfectionism and how to deal with burnout as an individual, as management and as an organisation.
We provide an insight on how to tackle burnout and why mental health is such a taboo subject, particularly in the workplace.
Promoting employee well-being improves returns, studies shows
Investing in the health and well-being of employees can improve the financial performance of an organisation, research has suggested.
Safety & Health Practitioner
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All very positive just a little off from the truth of the mater when measuring performance following the introduction of a more sustainable set of “given” workplace conditions as the majority of businesses have become so used too sub-optimal performance they will find it difficult to separate the “reduction of deficits” from any “improvement” in performance / productivity.
On average one would ignore the first 20% in gains as recovery before benchmarking and improvement over & above norms..