Pillar #2: Employee Health

The second pillar in The Four Pillars Framework is employee health.  Years ago, this used to refer mostly to workplace safety issues, as many jobs were found in the manufacturing industry.  Nowadays, employee health is starting to encorporate employee benefit programs, dealing with physical fitness, psychological well-being and workspace orientation.

The business case for companies to care about employee health can be described in three parts - (1) reduced costs, (2) greater revenue, and (3) greater promotion of brand.  The reduced costs are associated with a reduction in employee medical needs and/or disability costs.  There is also a reduction in the cost of recruitment and training.  This is expected because employees that feel taken care of are less likely to leave the company, meaning less turnover.  Less turnover, in turn, means less recruitment and training of new employees is necessary.  Greater revenue will be seen due to the improved job satisfaction of the employees.  Research has shown that happier employees are more productive employees.  And lastly, when a company establishes a great culture, their employees will openly speak about how great it is to work there.  This will increase the promotion of the company's brand.

It is important to consider what constitutes the working conditions of a workplace.  As stated before, this does not mean only working conditions anymore.  Working conditions include exposure to safety/health hazards, hours worked, schedule of work, workload, pace of work, inadequate benefits, flexibility of hours, ability to take breaks and access to resources needed to perform one's job well.  Any one of these working conditions could cause an employee to become stressed, which if left alone, can lead to burnout.  For instance, if a worker is feeling fatigue, it is possible that a change in a job rotation policy might reduce repetitive tasks and relieve this fatigue.

So how does one implement an employee wellness program when the concept is foreign?  Well, the best practice is to utilize an integrated approach.  This means:

• Leadership Commitment - You cannot expect to implement a new program without buy-in from the leaders within a company.  Employees will look to these leaders as examples.  They need to preach employee wellness, but they also need to live employee wellness.  This means that these leaders must actively listen to their employees' needs and also make sure to lead by example and take care of themselves.  If a leader is seen over-working all of the time, employees might not believe that they should be leaving at a reasonable hour themselves.
• Participation - This is necessary from all.  Individuals from all levels of a company must be able to speak on their needs and have a platform to be heard.  A company should empower its leaders to hold regular sessions to recieve feedback. 
• Policies, Programs + Practices - These should be focused on building at the systems level.  This means coordination across many different departments and system wide communication.
• Comprehensive + Collaborative Strategies - As stated before, an approach must reach all of the company and incorporate input from all parts.
• Data Driven Change -  A successful program will have regular evaluation and establish metrics that can stay consistent.

This task of establishing an employee wellness program that works is no easy task.  But, it can be argued that this is the way of the future.  Taking care of one's people is how companies can retain the best employees and succeed in their industries.

What are some ideas that you might have for employee health?

-Vicky