Well-being and health promotion

The CIPD warns employers that ignoring employee health and well-being can result in significant costs to an organisation in terms of sick pay and temporary staffing cover as well as having a negative impact on employee morale, colleague workloads and ultimately business productivity.

The Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) says: “If employers focus only on illness or absence management, they will only be managing cases of illness. Instead, they need to make the connection between an effective well-being programme and the health of their business,” according to its report, Working well — guidance on promoting health and well-being at work.

Investors in People (IiP) which advises employers on their management standards offers a Health and Wellbeing Award. Actively advising employees on health issues is a starting point for a proactive policy, although that can vary between regular and occasional advice. Where employers do it at all it seems most will provide advice on general health issues, not just work-related ones.

According to IOSH, the top priorities for health practitioners include common mental health problems (anxiety, depression, perceived ill health) and musculoskeletal disorders (for example, back pain). Evidence from workplace level suggests that it is also likely to include smoking/quitting, alcohol use/abuse, stress, healthy eating, substance abuse, and the need for physical activity/exercise.

Some employers take a more selective approach, concentrating their efforts on particular groups, such as those involved with manual handling, those working with hazardous substances under the COSHH regulations, or those working with display screen equipment. Where this happens the focus is likely to be on workers in particular roles or departments or workers who have been on long-term sick leave or short-term sick leave.

Good practice can start with regular health checks. In some cases this is a legal requirement — for example, for night workers under the Working Time Regulations. It can involve basic medical examinations, medical screening (which employees can choose to take part in) or, less frequently, comprehensive medical examinations.

Apart from advice and health checks, some employers offer treatment or other measures aimed at improving employee health such as counselling; free or reduced club or gym membership; incentives on cycling or walking to work; vaccinations, such as a flu jab; physiotherapy; or reflexology. These services are quite likely to be provided on an outsourced basis or by using contract staff.

TUC guidance on employee well-being warns that it can be a convenient label for almost any health-related initiative and a way of by-passing union involvement, but if there are recognised union health and safety reps in the workplace they have to be consulted on any health and safety matter. Most well-being issues relating to work organisation, such as stress and workload, are clearly health and safety issues of relevance to union reps.

Employment relations service Acas says that to improve well-being at work, the first step must be to look at the management of the workplace, how work is organised and how workers are supported.