Employee wellbeing | How to design a health strategy that works

How to design a health strategy that works

By Kay Needle, Early Intervention and Rehabilitation Expert at Generali UK Employee Benefits

“Self-imposed chronic disease due to lifestyle choices” represents a huge burden on people, society and business, says Paul Nattrass, Commercial Director at Inuvi, a provider of medical screening and health insight services, and one of the Employee Benefits Claims and Medical Underwriting team’s trusted partners whose services are eligible for Wellbeing Investment Matching (WIM) funding. People need to learn how to improve their health behaviours. And those employers who take a personalised, data-led approach to help their workforce with this will be the winners, he adds.

The burden of chronic disease on people and business is expected to continue its upward trajectory, says Paul. This is due to people having to work until later in life – whether due to increases in state pension age or simply because people cannot afford to retire any earlier – and, at the same time, potentially burdened with chronic disease.

Latest reported figures show that around 7 in 10 people in England do not follow guidelines on tobacco use, alcohol consumption, healthy diet or physical activity. All these lifestyle factors influence the risk of morbidity and mortality. Research also shows that lifestyle factors are associated with employees’ absence from work due to illness; from musculoskeletal diseases and depressive disorders to circulatory, respiratory and digestive diseases.

Encouragingly though, 6 in 10 trust their employers to do what is right when it comes to addressing health-related needs and concerns. In fact, there is more trust in employers than there is in government, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the media.

Aligning employer and employee health needs

Most employers know they have an important responsibility here. They’re trying their best to provide comprehensive employee health and wellbeing support.

“But figuring out where to start. And balancing business needs with employee expectations can be really difficult,” says Josh Hornyold, Digital Propositions Lead at Inuvi.

He adds: “These days, employees expect their employers to provide access to services and support for better health and wellbeing self-management. This has led to a global rise in one-size-fits-all solutions. But, at the same time, it has also led to growing employer and employee disconnects.”

Research shows the majority of employers (58%) do not have a good understanding of their employee’s health and wellbeing needs.

According to Dr Nisa Aslam, Chief Medical Officer at Inuvi, this is because, when designing programmes, it’s all too easy for employers to be led by national-level health issues – or industry benchmarking data – than it is by actual workforce needs.

“We’re all bombarded by health information all the time,” adds Dr Aslam. “It’s difficult to unravel the truth and to understand the risks that apply to your discrete workforce. These risks aren’t necessarily aligned with what’s happening on a national level. For example, led by national data on the increase in diabetes incidence, one of our clients wanted help to design a diabetes prevention programme for their workforce. But when we looked at their aggregated data, we found that less than 2% of their workforce population had pre-diabetes, let alone diabetes. In other words, their risks of diabetes were super low. So, we were able to evidence to them that it would be better to direct their resources elsewhere.”

Health data is invaluable to designing programmes that meet needs and that can be personalised, adds Josh.

How to implement an effective health & wellbeing strategy

  • Make sure the whole workforce can take part and that it isn’t a burden.

  • Understand that you won’t see immediate results. You wouldn’t expect instant results when you sign up to a gym - the same goes for any health improvement programme.

  • Don’t believe it if anyone tells you that improving employee health is unaffordable – it’s simply not true!

  • Challenge providers – how do they improve health? And where’s the evidence?

  • Make use of existing benefits and services – products like Group Income Protection include lots of personalised support that can be weaved into health strategy, from Vocational Rehabilitation to virtual GP services, plus mental health and cancer support pathways. Your provider might even help you fund extra specialist services, where a specific need is identified, via initiatives like our Wellbeing Investment Matching.

  • Measure success – it’s a long-term commitment to a pathway, and longitudinal data is key. So, don’t expect results in 12 months. However, you should analyse metrics annually to collect insights, tailor interventions, track the trends, amend the health strategy and validate improvements.

To access a free recording of Generali UK’s full 40-min webinar, entitled ‘A data-informed approach to de-risking your workforce’ in partnership with Inuvi, please email [email protected]

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Disclaimer:

All information contained herein represents the views and opinions of the author as of the date of writing and is provided for general information only. Nothing herein constitutes or is intended to constitute financial or other form of advice and no individual should rely upon the information provided in making a specific investment decision without first seeking independent professional advice.

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Generali UK provides Group Life Assurance, Group Income Protection - plus added-value wellbeing services - to the UK employees of multinational clients. Generali UK is also pioneering Wellbeing Investment Matching, helping clients fund discrete, tailored wellbeing initiatives where a need has been identified.

Access to a range of multinational pooling and captive solutions is available via: Generali Employee Benefits Network (GEB), and a range of non-life coverages is available via Generali Global Corporate & Commercial.