Proper implementation, measurement key to success, say experts
For all the focus on wellness of late, employers may not be fully onboard with the health-focused trend, judging by a recent survey.
More than half of Canadian HR managers (57 per cent) said their organization has decreased its health and wellness offerings in the past five years, found the OfficeTeam survey of more than 300 managers, while just 22 per cent saw an increase.
“It could be that some companies are thinking that they’re too costly to implement, especially over the last couple of years, while the economy was maybe not as strong as we’re seeing currently — people were needing to maybe cut corners or make some adjustments,” said Koula Vasilopoulos, Calgary-based district president for OfficeTeam, a Robert Half company.
“Perhaps some people and companies were thinking employees were taking charge of their own health and wellness, and weren’t necessarily feeling the need to incorporate this into the workplace or the company offerings.”
But employers shouldn’t make that assumption.
“Ultimately, they really should be cognizant of how important these programs could be relative to attraction and retention of top talent,” she said.
Employers may be trying to reduce costs with initiatives that aren’t giving them a return, according to Mike Wahl, national senior director for wellness at Medisys in St. John’s.
Companies that are able to benchmark the effectiveness, and see the value within the service, would see it as a cost-saving measure, he said, “whereas those cutting it may have programs that are not well-defined or are not attacking the issues that are related to the business itself, and operations.”
Any initiative an employer puts in place may see a decline, said Emma Nicholson, occupational health and safety specialist at the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS) in Hamilton, Ont.
“That’s why it’s really important to get that engagement from the staff,” she said. “(It’s about) finding out what does well-being actually mean to workers in their organization, because it isn’t a one-size-fits-all…while it’s important to have a top-down approach, you need to have that employee buy-in and input to find out what their needs are to make sure they’re matching.”
It’s also about making sure wellness is integrated into the overall culture of the workplace, she said.
“So (it’s about) looking at ‘How do we schedule work, how do we assign projects, how do we run meetings?’ and making sure there’s a well-being tone to all of those things that are being done in the workplace.”
Determining ROI
Another possible reason for employers’ reluctance is a lack of solid ROI, as there are different ways to measure the effectiveness, said Vasilopoulos.
“Just like all of the benefits that a company offers, they should revisit and definitely stay competitive, and understand not only what is being used, but the return on that. And that could be not just in productivity, it could be in overall culture, it could be in retention, turnover, that kind of thing.”
Many employers just look at absenteeism or presenteeism when it comes to metrics around wellness, but that’s not a good gauge, said Wahl. It’s also important to look at factors such as long-term disability, recruitment, training, turnover, brand equity and the regulatory burden, he said.
“These are all metrics that aren’t typically assessed by wellness companies, but really are the cost drivers within a company,” said Wahl.
Employers often provide offerings just so they can tick a box, such as educational seminars without any kind of followup to teach employees about nutrition, or biometric screens with no tools to help people improve their numbers, he said.
“These are the types of things that wellness has to evolve to be able to meet, to be able to see: ‘Look, we’re measuring things, we’re showing an improvement, we’re able to rejig our programming’ depending on the needs of the company — whether it be engagement or improving health or soft tissue injuries or dealing with aging workforces or work-life balance. And when they can address what’s relevant to the company and show it’s working against metrics, they’d be more sustainable and something that’s not cut during a budgetary cutback.”
Beyond financial reasons, there are also moral and ethical reasons for wellness programs, in terms of valuing your people, said Nicholson.
“If I feel that my employer is investing in me by giving me personal help resources, I see they care and want my well-being to be looked after, in return, I would repay them in the way of loyalty or engagement or retention.”
