Whether you are in London, Los Angeles or Lagos, it is likely that you will be facing many of the same health risks. Lifestyle-related health issues such as stress, obesity and chronic conditions are common in every developed country around the world, reducing productivity, and pushing up absence and healthcare expenditure.
Given these common issues, a global wellbeing programme can be very effective. As well as addressing the issues employees face, by taking a global approach, an organisation ensures consistency of benefits.
Wellbeing benefits
It makes sense to focus on wellbeing too. Analysis of healthcare expenditure by the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, published in xx, shows that as much as 75% of spending is to treat diseases that are a result of lifestyle behaviours such as inactivity, poor diet and smoking.
By finding ways to help employees modify these behaviours, a wellbeing programme can have far-reaching benefits. As well as improving employees' health and helping to reduce healthcare expenditure, the organisation's bottom line benefits too.
For example, analysis of health risk assessment data found that a high-risk individual will take, on average, 5.32 days absence a year compared with 1.88 days and 1.08 days for those with medium and low risk respectively. Similarly, while productivity among individuals with low health risk is an average of 84%, this drops to 62% among those with a high risk.
Building a programme
To enable employees to make improvements to their health and lifestyle, a global wellbeing programme should be made up of four key elements. The first should focus on the healthy and can include assessments and screening, in addition to health information and challenges such as walking and weight loss competitions.
A programme also needs to focus on the healthy at risk. These are individuals who have been identified as having lifestyle issues, such as smoking, a poor diet or lack of activity, that could result in future health problems. Online health improvement programmes and wellbeing coaching can help them change these behaviours at an early stage.
A global wellbeing programme must also recognise that some employees will have developed health problems already. Therefore, the third element should look at chronic condition management. This can help these employees manage their condition and lead as normal a life as possible.
The fourth is concerned with serious disease, providing case management and support to ensure these employees receive the most appropriate care.
Although all global wellbeing programmes will contain these four elements, it is also important to recognise the specific health risks unique to each organisation. To achieve this, an organisation could its employees to gain an understanding of the key health risks it is facing.
Based on this insight it is possible to put together a tailored programme containing services and tools that will help reduce these risks. This enables employees to take the steps necessary to improve their health and wellbeing, resulting in reductions in absence and improvements to productivity.
Engaging employees
As with many things, communication plays a large part in the success of a programme. Rather than focusing on some of the serious health improvement messages, by using initiatives such as games, recipes, offline challenges, give-aways and prize draws, an organisation can really engage employees and make them want to take part.
It is also essential that the programme is regularly reviewed and assessed to ensure it is working. Monitoring take-up and results, as well as regularly refreshing elements of the programme, can ensure it stays engaging and continues to deliver benefits to employees and the organisation.
Box: Counting the cost of health risks
- Chronic diseases accounted for around 46% of the global burden of disease in 2001. This is expected to increase to 57% by 2020. (Source: World Health Organisation (Who))
- Stress is the number one health issue and the most common cause of long-term sickness leave. (Source: Centre for Mental Health, American Heart Association)
- Those who do not exercise experience 46% greater absence than those who exercise as little as once a week. (Source: Who)
- 39% of adults are considered obese, increasing the risk of chronic (Source: Who).
Javier Cano is managing director for global health benefits in Europe at Cigna
