Wellness ranks low as business priority (Editorial)

It’s going to take more research to provide ROI arguments before wellness gets the executive attention it deserves, says the head of Brock University’s Wellness Institute.

“If the business case is not linked to productivity, it won’t catch the eye of senior management,” said John Yardley, director of the St. Catharines, Ont. institute. “There’s a real need for research to create the business case for wellness.”

Statistics from Canadian HR Reporter’s survey show that senior executives haven’t got the wellness message yet, Yardley said.

When asked how important wellness and disability management are to top management in the development of the organization’s business strategy, one-quarter of responding HR practitioners answered “unimportant.” Another 32.8 per cent said “some importance,” 26.8 per cent said “important,” and only 10.8 per cent answered “ very important.”

And health and wellness is failing to place highly as a part of overall HR strategy. Asked what level of importance wellness and disability management are to HR strategy, 17.1 per cent said “unimportant,” 35.1 per cent said “some importance,” 29.7 per cent said “important,” and 16.2 per cent responded “very important.” Response levels were similar to a question about the importance of health and safety (see accompanying charts.)

“There are a couple of possible explanations for why wellness is not ranking higher on HR’s own agenda,” said Jane Petruniak of Watson Wyatt. “It may be that wellness advocates still have some work to do convincing HR professionals of the strategic value of a workplace health initiative, or that HR is being wary of executive resistance on the issue, particularly in times of belt tightening.

“HR is potentially seeing wellness as a trap for themselves for fear of being looked at as ‘soft and fluffy’ in their organizations and they are not ready to take that risk,” said Petruniak.

Some confusion over the term “wellness” also exists.

“Some organizations see health in terms of the traditional hygiene side of occupational health and safety and have a misunderstanding of its broader scope,” said Yardley. “Terminology can be a problem leading to misunderstanding and hence undervaluing wellness.”

Another challenge is executives viewing health and wellness as a long-term payoff they aren’t willing to invest in, preferring more immediate ROI, said Petruniak. And for HR, providing ROI to skeptics may be almost impossible in terms of gathering enough qualitative or quantitative data to make the case for non-believers, she said.

Yardley, while disappointed with the findings of the survey, is encouraged that a movement towards a realization of the importance of wellness is gaining ground. Last year, Brock added a four-year Workplace Health BA that combines HR, health and economics. The Conference Board of Canada is showing great interest in the topic, and the National Quality Institute (NQI) has added it to its mandate, Yardley said, pointing to the emergence of wellness over the last few years.

NQI, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping Canadian organizations achieve, quality, productivity and excellence, did indeed begin its focus on wellness a few years ago.

“As we worked with more and more organizations on quality, we saw the need to have a very clear focus on the issue of health and wellness in the workplace,” said Dan Corbett, president of the NQI.

“It’s not just about having a gymnasium or an employee assistance program, it’s a whole strategic approach on how organizations want to focus on their people. The level of service an organization provides its clients and customers is a function of the satisfaction and service employees have within the organization as well,” he said.

Corbett agrees more has to be done on making the business case if lukewarm attitudes about wellness expressed in the survey are to change for the better.

“We’re also working on establishing a good business case,” he said. “Organizations we work with see this as an investment because there is a measurable return to the bottom line for an investment in a healthy workplace. That’s why we’re focusing on health and wellness as part of a culture of excellence.”

So is HR’s lack of clout stopping wellness from making it onto the agenda, or is pushing wellness blocking HR from making it into the executive suites? Either way, focusing on the business case makes sense if things are to change, said Petruniak.

Two paths of evolution and maturity — that of the HR profession and wellness as a business issue — are emerging at the same time. “It will be interesting to see if HR and wellness can make it to the top together,” said Petruniak.

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