THE COST OF HAVING UNHEALTHY EMPLOYEES
Organizations are usually proud of their ability to offer innovative and modern health and wellness programs. These programs are chosen carefully in the hope that they will help retain and attract the best employees. Clinical studies continually show that health improvements from health and wellness programs are not as good as they should be, mainly because the chosen programs are not appropriately designed to meet the overall needs of the participants.
Effective health and wellness programs benefit the employee and the employer. When health and wellness programs are designed and implemented using evidence-based techniques, they become a vital component in improving the health of the workforce, decreasing absenteeism, and allowing companies to offer a more consistent product or service.
Why should the health of your employees matter, and what do you lose by having
employees with poor health? Consider the following:
- Sick or unhealthy employees cost their organizations $150 billion to
$250 billion annually. - High blood pressure, diabetes, smoking, physical inactivity, and obesity
collectively cost U.S. organizations $36.4 billion annually due to
employee absenteeism. - Employees suffering from depression cost U.S. employers $44 billion
each year in lost productive time, which does not include the cost of
absenteeism.
HEALTH PROMOTION
Health promotion in the workplace is the first step in creating effective integrated health and wellness programs and services that enhance the overall health of the employee. Health Promotion, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), is the most effective when an individual can take control of their health autonomously. Health promotion programs and services are a waste of money when employees:
- Do not understand the purpose of the program.
- Do not grasp how the program will positively benefit their health
conditions and needs. - How to use the program or service.
- Access to the program or service is complex or cumbersome.
Health autonomy, which is the goal of health promotion, is ONLY possible and predicated on participants actively accepting, adopting, and applying health practices into their daily lives and individual health situations. Still, even more importantly, employees should be allowed and encouraged to voice their opinions. The organization must understand if the promotion being planned will be accepted by the workers. If not, and if the organization has determined that the program is beneficial, then a much more aggressive campaign for education and literacy will have to be implemented.
Example. Suppose your workers have verbalized prior to program implementation that they will not participate if they do not believe the program will suit their needs.
In this case, the organization has a marketing problem and will need a more aggressive promotional campaign if they feel that a large portion of their workers will benefit. If not, it may be wise to use the allocated resources on other programs and services the workers are more attuned to and will use. Some ways organizations can gather information regarding proposed and current health promotion programs are by allowing workers to voice their views and opinions on the. Companies do this by using:
- Surveys
- Newsletters
- Apps
- Promotional emails
- Company intranet
- Employee town halls
- Texts
NEW YEAR, MORE STRESS
This article is meant to help organizations and employees consider how health and being healthy the entire year, not just January, should be the goal of any health maintenance program or service.
There are very few people you will meet in the coming days who have yet to declare a New Year’s resolution.
The most popular resolutions centre around weight loss, exercise, and financial management. However, resolutions are as varied as the people who make them. Mental health experts believe that January is the most stressful month of the year, mainly because people are focused almost entirely on starting and sticking to the resolutions they have made. The person’s mind is constantly thinking about how not to backslide or fail; as a result, minor slip-ups or digressions are usually perceived to be worse than they really are and can make our stress worse.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) says 1 million Americans miss work daily due to stress. 94% of U.S. workers surveyed admit to high levels of stress at some time during their work shift. High-stress levels can lead to and exacerbate chronic health conditions, such as:
- Anxiety.
- Depression.
- Digestive problems.
- Headaches.
- Heart attack
- Heart disease.
- High blood pressure
- Insomnia
- Memory difficulties.
- Muscle pain
- Muscle tension
- Obesity
- Stroke
Companies frequently fail to consider how high levels of stress in an employee’s personal life can spill over into their work life. This stress can have a negative impact on workplace attendance, morale, productivity, and the quality of products and services.
EMPLOYEE ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS (EPAs)
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) should be designed to provide behavioral health assessments, short-term counseling, referral management, consultations, and coaching. These services should be available and accessible by employees 24/7, 365.
Most medium and large-size companies in the U.S. provide EAPs, yet they do not take full advantage of ALL the services offered. This could be because organizations themselves are not entirely sure what they should be looking for in EAPs; as a result, their workers do not reap the full benefits the program is designed to deliver.
Companies should work more diligently with their EAP providers to advertise, promote, and furnish materials and better access to programs and services. Organizations are good at providing EAP materials during new hire orientation and health insurance open enrollment events. These materials should be available more often in a variety of models so that all learning types are comfortable digesting the information. The goal of the new campaign should be to reinforce the usually tepid details on the usefulness of EAPs workers generally receive.
CLINICALLY APPROVED SELF-ASSESSMENT TOOLS
Employees should be provided with and educated on how to rate their anxiety, depression, and stress using universally approved clinical self-assessment tools. Anxiety, depression, and stress assessment tools help individuals quantify their emotions so they can immediately communicate to a clinician the intensity, severity, or significance of their current emotional suffering; this is important because a person who is having an acute mental health crisis may not be able to verbalize the seriousness of their condition with long conversations or a series of questions and answers.
For example, a participant may rate their anxiety or depression as 1 out of 10. This means the participant’s current emotional condition may not require emergent care. A telehealth assessment, discussion, or referrals for outpatient treatment and community resources may be appropriate.
Yet, a participant who rates their anxiety or depression as 10 out of 10 means their current emotional condition is too intense for them to manage alone and may require emergent intervention, such as 911 calls to the police or Emergency Medical Services (EMS) for immediate care, treatment, and possibly acute hospitalization.
SMART GOALS SETTING
Many times, New Year resolutions are doomed, not because a person needs more willpower but because they fail to plan logically and realistically for the new changes.
Many will write down their resolutions, which is an excellent initial step. However, goals can still fail or collapse when they are not written using the SMART Method of Goal Setting (see SMART GOALS: A How-To Guide). SMART Goals are:
- S-Specific
- M-Measurable
- A-Achievable
- R-Realistic/Relevant
- T-Time specific.
When the resolutions are written using SMART, they become a visual representation of future success; this written and visible plan is now the blueprint that shows us how to proceed and stay on track. The planning can help ease some of the tension and anxiety surrounding our resolutions by taking the guesswork out of what we should be doing.
Organizations should also resolve in the New Year to discuss with their EAP providers about presenting educational and literacy materials about stress, anxiety, and other mental health conditions to their employees more often than just at new hire orientation or annual benefits enrollment events.
These materials should provide helpful tips and information to workers that they can use to manage the stress and anxiety that prevent positive work-life balance, not just in January but in every month of the year
THE HEALS INTEGRATED WELLNESS STRATEGY
Wellness for the Workplace (W4TWP) has developed The HEALS Integrated Wellness Strategy, a proprietary health and wellness system to help organizations implement and maintain healthier workplaces; we believe healthy employees = healthy profits!
The 5 Steps to implementing an effective wellness program in the workplace start with The HEALS Integrated Wellness Strategy:
- H- Health Promotion- Enables individuals to control their health.
- E- Education- Entails various skills taught to participants that accelerate voluntary actions conducive to improving health and healthy outcomes.
- A- Assessment- Three types of assessments should occur when implementing wellness programs:
- Organizational Health Risk Avoidance Assessment
- Individual Health Risk Assessment
- Comprehensive Health Risk Assessment (CHRA)
- L- Literacy- The ability to understand medical terminology, health information, and healthcare data to make informed medical decisions. The quality of an individual’s health literacy significantly determines whether they are healthy, maintain health, or have a healthy lifestyle.
Two determinations must be made regarding health literacy:
- Individual Health Literacy
- Organizational Health Literacy
- S-Solutions- How organizations use healthcare best practices to increase the health of their employees while reaping the benefits of company profits.
Want to find out if Unhealthy Employees Are Undermining Your Organization’s Profit Goals? Click the link for FREE access to The HEALS Organizational Assessment Tool.
Wellness For The Workplace (W4TWP)
www.w4twp.com
[email protected]
Ph: 866-378-9336
