Wellbeing – Achieving a healthy profit
Exploring the benefits of Wellness management from a balance sheet perspective.
When Tory leader David Cameron called for more government focus on improving people’s happiness rather than just incomes, it was perceived by some as just another cynical ploy to promote the new caring, sharing and green Conservatives. However there is growing evidence that physical and mental wellbeing not only increases an individual’s personal happiness but also their contribution to the success of the organisations for which they work and the communities in which they live.
That is why Wellness Management has emerged as the new generation of people management, designed to meet the challenges of increasing pressure, faster pace, rapid change and growing uncertainty that most people face.
While 3% to 5% of the workforce will be away from work through illness on any one day, costing UK business an estimated £13bn a year, a further 25% may be performing sub-optimally whilst at work, through physical or mental strain. These costs dwarf those of absence yet, until recently, have rarely been the subject of management focus or action.
Anthony Phillips from Wellkom, who has worked with organisations in both the public and private sectors, sees a clear case for more investment to promote the physical and mental wellbeing of employees: “The evidence is there and maybe if we got the Accountants (and not just HR) to look at the return on investment identified by available research, wellbeing would get more of a look-in at the corporate management team table.”
So what is Wellness Management? Anthony explains it as the fusion of 3 disciplines: Health Management; Human Resource Management and Business Improvement. For Wellkom it is summed up by the formula: Well people + Well managed = A well organisation.
The goals of Wellness Management are to enable organisations, teams and individuals to sustain higher levels of performance as well as for individuals to enjoy life even more.
For us here at Synergy it has become a central platform of the Group’s strategy – we know that recruitment and training are very much about people and by promoting wellbeing for our candidates and contractors we will also provide our clients with staff who are more self motivated and higher performing. In this case it’s a triple win situation, as we attract more candidates who are happier and more focused and as a result more productive and better value for the client.
Synergy plan to use a range of options to promote wellbeing, including an online diagnostic tool, health awareness events, counselling services, volunteering programmes and other CSR activities and a reward scheme that supports healthy lifestyles.
Because of the expertise that we have developed in this area we will also be in a position to offer help and advice to clients who wish to implement Wellness Management in their own organisations. We will aim to invite clients to become part of Wellness Management communities that share ideas and experience and also achieve economies of scale by sharing the cost of some interventions.
In partnership with their clients, Synergy is looking forward to a healthy, wealthy future – and having some fun along the way.
