There are many benefits to employees, ranging from healthcare plans, paid leave, pension, and retirement plans. These plans enact as a tool to recruit and maintain their quality and authenticity.
However, there is little familiarity with the fact that offering benefits may have a measurable effect on the workers but seldom implemented or studied as a basic endearment.
The benefits to the employees make a fair amount of difference in the ability to attract suitable candidates and later turn them to the consistent long-term employees.
Table Of Contents:
- 7 Employee wellness Statistics
- Improvement in Employee Health Behaviors
- Reduces Health hazards and risks
- Helps in compensation of Healthcare costs
- Productivity is directly related to the wellness program
- Total attendance and less Absenteeism
- Growth in the market
- Surveys and Research
- Major Issues
- Unwell Workers
- Wellness Program Reach
- Cost And Remittance
7 Employee wellness Statistics
Improvement in Employee Health Behaviors
Positive behavioral change is at the core of a quality wellness program; the right skills, motivation, education, and social support helps in the betterment of the wellness of the people and maintain their healthy behaviors.
A chain of activity connects one with the other; healthy behavior leads to a lower health risk, which in turn lessens the chances of having a chronic disease and thus lesser healthcare costs.
Not every wellness program can show positive results, but the one that follows the behavior changes and is well organized for the employee's grasp outperforms more than others.
- According to the workplace wellness statistics, the study was done for two years, which showed how an approximation of 1800 employees reported their health behaviors to be stagnant and how it transitioned to be at a better place and show better results on the emotional and emotional health font.
This implies that if the employees are led to participate in good models and strategized wellness programs according to their niche, then it is apparent that they will adopt the behavior to maintain it for many years to come and not just in the beginning.
- Wellness program helps in alleviating depression and improve the circumstances, and the studies also show that the employees tend to have better health behavior. Their diet includes everything healthier, small portions, regular exercises, fewer drinks, and no smoke lifestyle.
- The American Heart Association has completed a review done extensively to understand the ability of wellness programs that can help in improving health and reduce cardiovascular risk.
- Another comprehensive study from 2013 named Rand Report in which the authors concluded the workplace wellness programs ha the ability to contain the current scenario of diseases caught due to lifestyle-related issues. The premature morbidity, mortality, and healthcare costs could be directly affected with the help of it.
Reduces Health hazards and risks
Unhealthy diet plan and lack of physical activities are the main reason cause blood glucose elevation, high blood cholesterol, high blood pressure, and many such health issues. Thus the foundation must be kept in focus while framing or executing the wellness program.
The workplace wellness statistics state that health risks could be improved through healthy behaviors in and less than six weeks. They can lower the health risks for as longs as six to eighteen months and more.
On starting the wellness program, there are many changes that an individual develops, and as long as he/she can hold up to following the good habits, they can sustain a healthy life. For example: when the diet plan is transitioned to healthy eating from the junk, or alcohol and tobacco is avoided for good, better things and development commenced.
- As per the report published by The New England Journal Of Medicine, the risk of heart attack drops by 2-3% for every 1% drop in total cholesterol. The risk of heart disease is reduced to about 2-3% for every one-point drop in diastolic blood's elevation.
- One such research conducted by PubMed was done to Asses the relationship between employee health risks and wellness programs https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26461868/ shows data from approx. One hundred seventy thousand health-risk appraisals and participation records. These records were used to assess the health risks of seven conditions: body weight, blood pressure, cholesterol, physical inactivity, nutrition, stress, and tobacco use.
Helps in compensation of Healthcare costs
Comprehensive worksite wellness programs will see actual improvement over time if followed sincerely, thus bending the healthcare cost trend. They will discover overtime that the savings from program participation are more significant than the program's cost, and most studies showed a similar positive outcome on the return of investment or (ROI).
- In 2001, there was a comprehensive review of the financial impact of the worksite wellness program published. This study reviewed 100 different research papers, which implied that to reduce the health care cost, one must note the wellness program's effectiveness. The research conducted was based on highly complicated analyses of ROI, which take years to complete as merely having an occasional nutrition awareness lunch or biometric screening will not help the task alone.
- Recent publishing by Harvard summarizes their research stating that the average ROI was 3.27 on the 22 different studies about wellness programs and healthcare costs. This implied that the company saved $1 spent on the program for $3.27 due to reduced healthcare costs.
- Researchers evaluated the WellSteps wellness program and concluded that after four years of wellness on this worksite, they are spending less on the healthcare costs than before the beginning of the program. They saved $3.3 on every dollar spent.
Productivity is directly related to the wellness program.
Employee who are physically at work but elsewhere mentally is the prime reason for poor productivity. This kind of poor productivity where the worker does not work even when present at the workplace is known as presenteeism. The estimated cost associated with the presenteeism affect the health care costs directly which turns out to be 2-3 time more than the direct health care expenses.
However, here the criticality of the condition does not receive much observation, as the employer remains preoccupied with controlling the direct costs incurred upon the company due to poor employee health.
- The research published by the Journal Population Health Management stated that there were many such findings to prove the existence of presenteeism. Smokers were more than one-fourth times likely to have high presenteeism than non-smokers. An unhealthy diet of the employees was suggestively 66% more likely to have high presenteeism than those who ate whole grains, vegetables, and fruits more regularly.
- This also showed that employees who did not exercise had 50% more chances to be high on presenteeism. The employee with neck or back pain was more susceptible to having high presenteeism than 79% more than those without any such chronic health issues or pain.
- These all findings summed up to imply that individual choices of their lifestyles affect their productivity and work time. Therefore, the results confirm various ideas about the benefits of wellness.
Total attendance and less Absenteeism
Over 50 papers are there that have looked at the connections between reduced Absenteeism and worksite wellness programs. Worksites with comprehensive wellness programs can execute reduced Absenteeism for many different reasons:
- Lower Absenteeism can be seen in employees with good health behaviors
- Employees who have better control over their stress have lower Absenteeism
- Employees have lower Absenteeism if they are filled with healthy blood pressure, cholesterol, and glucose.
- Absenteeism is reduced in employees who are not overweight or obese
These are only the summarization of the research published in https://www.researchgate.net/publication/12128971_Health_Promotion_Programs_Modifiable_Health_Risks_and_Employee_Absenteeism
The overall conclusion derived from the studies is that any wellness program that works effectively can reduce the health care cost by reducing Absenteeism. According to Harvard researchers, the ROI of the wellness program concerning Absenteeism was shown to be $2.73 saved through reduced Absenteeism on every dollar spent on the wellness program.
Growth in the market
Workplace wellness was a market of $48 billion in 2017, which was then projected to grow to $66 billion in 2022. The sector has been seen growing annually by 4.8 percent from 2015–2017.
General Wage Increase (GWI) estimates that only 10 percent of the world's workers are privileged to access workplace wellness programs and services and are primarily concentrated in Europe and North America.
GWI estimates that unwellness in the workforce (work-related stress, work-related injuries, chronic disease, illnesses, and employee disengagement) may cost 10-15% annual economic output to the global economy.
Surveys and Research
A workplace wellness survey by Virgin HealthMiles Inc. and Workforce Management Magazine found that an overwhelming 77% of employees believe that employee wellness programs positively impact the company culture.
The group surveyed about 10,000 employees and 1300 businesses for its annual survey that found a strong connection between the vitality and wellness of employees. This resulted in increased job morale, commitment, satisfaction, and performance.
The Virgin HealthMiles/Workforce found that around 87% of them considered health and wellness offerings
When choosing an employer.
The Society for Human Resource Management's research, 75% of employers indicated that their companies offered some of the other different types of resource or service or a wellness program to employees.
MAJOR ISSUES
UNWELL WORKERS
Approximately more than 3.4 billion workers are sick and have been living with severe economic insecurity.
There are around 74% underpaid workers who earn less than $13/day, 45% are in low-skill job sectors, around 77% are working part-time, which is highly unstable.
Apart from the figure mentioned, around 18% of the workforce will be over 55 by the end of 2030, 52% are accounted to be obese or overweight, almost around 76%, which is more the three-fourth of the population are reported to be struggling with their wellbeing.
WELLNESS PROGRAM REACH
For the record, it has been stated that only 9% of the global workforce has access to a few wellness programs at the worksite. U.S companies pay for employee healthcare is the most significant innovator and marketer by far, with 52% in North America alone, employees are being supported through a wellness program. However, since the decade has been evidencing chronic and pandemic altogether with diseases on the run globally, healthcare spikes are inevitable in the European market; this GWI implies a significant rise in spending on workplace wellness globally in the coming days.
COSTS AND REMITTANCE
Unlike Healthy workers, unwell workers represent 15% of economic output globally. The record suggests an unwell employee serves in staggering 12% GDP or costs a whopping $2.2 trillion a year.
- Chronic disease - $1.1 trillion
- Work-related illness on injuries - $250 billion
- Work-related stress - $300 billion
- Work-disengagement cost - $550 billion
In all the ways and research done and mentioned, it is clearly stated that activities may or may not work for the environment, but the program has a positive impact on the worksite. Selection of the suitable program as per the employee structure and workforce is the key, the result will not be seen in the early stage, but the Wellness Program goes a long way in providing the organization some serious returns and employee satisfaction at the job.
