Wellbeing | Poor employee health costing UK economy £77.5bn

Britain’s workplaces are reportedly costing the UK economy over £77billion per year – or the equivalent of 35.6 work days per employee – in health-related lost productivity, a nationwide survey by Vitality has found.

The findings were confirmed in research conducted by the company presented in the ‘Britain’s Healthiest Workplace’ report. It revealed a sharp rise in the loss of productive days since the survey begun – this is up from an average of 23 days per worker in 2014 – Active Quote reported.

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According to the study, UK employees lost 13.6% of their working hours in 2018. Of this number, 12.5% were due to issues surrounding presenteeism. Over 21% of those surveyed showed low levels of work engagement, whilst only 12% showed high engagement.

Vitality also discovered that more than half of employees between the ages of 18 and 40 years old have massive financial concerns. Workers that expressed such concerns were shown to be losing more than twice as much productivity and were also more likely to smoke and have health issues such as hypertension or cholesterol issues.