Employee Benefits Live 19: Personalising employee wellbeing

Stephen Bevan of the Institute for Employment Studies provided a thought-provoking insight into the research that his organisation has been conducting into employee wellbeing that we felt was worthy of reporting.

​He cited research by Oxford Economics which suggests that by 2030, a combination of an ageing demographic, later retirement and widening health inequalities mean that 40% of employees are likely to have a chronic illness that will affect their ability to work.

​This, combined with the asset that good employee health is to businesses, means that more should be done to convince employers to invest in it.

However, few workplace health initiatives have strong evidence to support them. Workplaces can support behaviour change amongst motivated staff, but ‘fruit and pilates evangelism’ is no substitute for providing interesting work and having a good manager.

He feels that a better impact on health can be achieved through giving staff more autonomy over their roles, such as encouraging staff to lead the re-design of their roles during recovery and return to work.

His research highlighted some common gaps in employer practice, including:

• It is easier to highlight physical rather than mental illness.
• Over-medicalising problems and solutions – stress is often seen as the medicalisation of unhappiness.
• A focus on symptoms rather than causes.
• Lack of measurement of financial benefits – often because it is too difficult.

He mentioned lots of good practice that he has found, but the overall message was a brave, yet thought-provoking one for an Employee Benefits exhibition! Are health-related employee benefits being put in place to compete in a tight labour market or to improve employee health? 

​The risk is that, by pretending that health benefits are the same as health interventions, we may be convincing ourselves that we are making a difference to the workplace when we are not…