Susan Gee, employee health and wellbeing manager at Yorkshire Water, will speak about the importance of using an organisation’s internal data when developing a health and wellbeing strategy at Employee Benefits Live.
The session, ‘Placing prevention at the heart of employee health and wellbeing’, will delve into this internal data, which includes the top reasons for absence, the age demographic of employees and whether an organisation is in a sector with particular healthcare trends.
Gee said: “Employers need to make sure that any money they’re spending is actually going to impact on areas that are identified risks.”
Yorkshire Water, for example, has a lot of field workers, so its employee healthcare-related data identified trends around musculoskeletal issues and exposure to stress.
To tackle these issues, the organisation provides back-care classes, ensures staff complete annual display screen equipment (DSE) assessments and ensures that anyone who is absent due to a musculoskeletal problem can be referred to occupational health.
“It’s really about focusing on prevention, so looking at what the risks are, and working with managers and HR to identify that, so money is spent well and employers get the right programme for their organisation,” said Gee.
“Employers should engage people straight away with polices and procedures that are robust, that encourage early intervention, so that they can get people back into work as soon as possible.”
Employee Benefits Live will be held at Olympia National in London on 24 and 25 September 2014.
