Why a proactive workplace health and wellbeing program is needed

It’s becoming more apparent that we need to take a proactive approach when it comes to addressing health and wellbeing in Australian workplaces. Now more than ever organisations need to be helping their employees to be and stay well. There are three important reasons why this is the case:

1.  What is generally occurring in the space is simply not working.

Chronic disease continues to be on the rise and it’s impacting on the health and wellbeing of Australian workers. While most chronic diseases are considered to be largely preventable, they still remain the prime cause of lost work time in the working-age population and often lead to disability and early retirement.

Unhealthy eating, physical inactivity, alcohol and smoking are they main lifestyle related risk factors associated with chronic diseases in Australia.

The workplace health and wellbeing market is growing, however, trends within the market are initiatives that:

• Only focus on one, or narrow, bands of health and wellbeing, such as just soft tissue injuries or mental health
• Rely heavily on onsite presence, which is expensive, caps the amount of people who can be worked with and has geographic challenges
• Are solely tech/app based with no human interaction
• Are vague and open ended
• Depend too greatly on the client (i.e., organisations) providing resources to the cause, and most companies simply don’t have the scope within existing roles to own such large pieces of work.
• Cannot measure or demonstrate their effectiveness. They typically depending too much on anecdotal evidence
• Do not progress beyond ‘awareness’. Such as one-off workshops, keynote speakers or monthly focus topics. While awareness is valuable, it’s only the first few steps of a truly successful health and wellbeing program. These initiatives fail to drive behaviours and sustain change

2. A proactive approach is the right and productive thing to do.

Employers who run health and wellbeing programs do so because they want to:

• Improve work performance and productivity
• Reduce costs associated with absenteeism, presenteeism, disability and workers’ compensation
• Improve the culture of the organisation and retain existing employees
• Improve the organisation’s image, attract talented employees and fulfill corporate social responsibility obligations

3. Workplace health and wellbeing is following a similar journey to what safety has.

Presently in the phase of government guidance and recommendations of best practice, the trajectory of health and wellbeing (like the one of safety) is progressing towards deliberate and effective strategies becoming mandated and legislated in the not too distant future.

This means that now is the perfect time for employers to get ahead of the game, establishing systems and healthy cultures prior to having to catch up to fulfill mandatory requirements.

In January of 2019 Safe Work Australia released ‘Work-related psychological health and safety, a systematic approach to meeting your duties. National guidance material’. This paper emphasises that a systematic approach is required to “…meet your legal duties to implement controls that eliminate or minimise the risk of psychological injuries…preventing psychological injury and supporting recovery.” “… Poor psychological work health and safety can lead to both psychological and physical injuries.”

Safe Work also detail how “using a thorough and systematic approach can have significant business benefits including:

• decreasing business disruption and costs from work-related psychological injury
• improving worker motivation, engagement and job satisfaction so increasing productivity, reducing absenteeism and turnover, and ultimately helping your organisation achieve its business goals, and
• enhancing your reputation as an employer of choice.”

At Healthy Business, we’ve modeled our Healthy Workplaces 'HealthCi' program to address these very issues. It's a complete solution that provides an ongoing system to improve organisational oversights, guide resources, and improve the health and wellbeing of employees. The program has been built from evidence-based resources combined with our extensive experience in delivering successful workplace health and wellbeing initiatives.

Check out healthci to find out more about the program

‍

References:

• World Economic Forum 2008, Working Towards Wellness: The Business Rationale, 1 July 2011,http://www.scribd.com/doc/51217174/Wellness-The-Business-Rationale
• Schofield, D.J, Shrestha, R.N, Passey, M.E, Earnest, Aand Fletcher, S.L 2008, ‘Chronic disease and labour force participation amongolder Australians’, The MedicalJournal of Australia, 189(8), pp.447-450, 19 August 2011,http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/189_08_201008/sch11012_fm.html
• Peeters, A 2007, Research Summary: Disease Trends,VicHealth, 1 July 2011, http://www.vichealth.vic.gov.au/~/media/ResourceCentre/PublicationsandResources/research_DiseaseTrends.ashx5
• Australian Government, Comcare. Benefits to Business:The Evidence for Investing in Worker Health and Wellbeing.
• https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/doc/work-related-psychological-health-and-safety-systematic-approach-meeting-your-duties

‍