The majority of employers now recognise the importance of having a fit, healthy and happy workforce; the impact it has on motivation, performance and even reducing staff absenteeism. A company with a focus on a wellbeing strategy will want to ensure their employee benefits deliver healthy outcomes. There are numerous options for employers when it comes to selecting benefits to include in a health and wellbeing strategy but employers should consider some key questions from the outset to help them decide the right strategy to put in place. These key questions should include:
- What is the company’s wellbeing strategy trying to achieve?
- What impact for the good of the business will this have?
- Do we have the right measurements and metrics in place to work out what we need to deliver and to achieve our objectives?
Simplyhealth advocates a preventative approach to healthcare, helping to stop problems before they start (or before they get worse) allowing employees to perform well.
Any health and wellbeing strategy should have some degree of focus on offering a preventive approach to maintaining your workforce’s health. Benefits such as private medical insurance are certainly valued by employees in terms of being used to treat illness but not necessarily to help prevent illness from occurring. However, what if you can also put measures in place which help to reinforce a healthy workforce and possibly help identify any health problems from a much earlier point. This is why we think including a health or dental plan as part of a health and wellbeing strategy is important to help employees to perform well.
How does a health or dental plan provide a preventative health benefit for employees?Unlike PMI which is used once a problem has occurred, health and dental plans are viewed as a tangible, useable benefit, helping employees to maintain their everyday health and so avoiding longer term illnesses. By offering cash back towards regular appointments with practitioners such as opticians, chiropractors, physios, dentists and many more, we’re offering employees the opportunity to look after their everyday health.
To use dental as an example: dental professionals are in a unique situation, as they see ‘healthy’ patients every day for routine dental care and treatment. This gives them the ability to help encourage greater personal responsibility among individuals to manage their oral health and develop healthy behaviours that help reduce the onset of long-term conditions. Dental problems can also affect people’s ability to eat, sleep, work and socialise effectively. This is why it’s important that companies encourage their employees to visit their dentist regularly in order to look after their oral health as a way to positively influence general health and help prevent possible wider health implications later.
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