Maximizing Well-being and Performance
More Canadian companies are discovering the strategic advantages of having an effective health and wellness program, including increased employee productivity and lower health claims costs. But there’s also an additional benefit being realized by companies with robust wellness plans: increased employee engagement.
According to Graham Lowe, president of The Graham Lowe Group Inc., there’s a strong correlation between workplace well-being and engagement. The two are closely linked, he said, even though they are often managed as distinct goals and strategies. “The same conditions in the work environment that promote engagement also promote wellness,” Lowe noted.
He pointed to Aon Hewitt’s Best Employers in Canada study, which shows that highly engaged workplaces report employees with better physical health, lower job stress and less absenteeism compared with less-engaged workplaces. He also cited research conducted at a Fortune 100 company showing that overall employee well-being predicts future performance and cost-related outcomes.
“In other words, well-being is a leading indicator of future human capital costs for employers,” Lowe explained.
Having a healthy, engaged workforce can also be a competitive edge for companies when attracting and retaining staff—and, in turn, making a profit. “Healthy employees working in healthy environments are more productive, creative and collaborative,” said Lowe. “The result will be a higher-performing and more sustainable organization.”
Still, he acknowledged that building and maintaining a highly engaged healthy workforce isn’t easy. He recommended that employers start by looking for synergies between their employee wellness and employee engagement strategies. In his report, The Wellness Dividend, Lowe noted that employers can also use wellness to increase engagement by involving employees in planning, implementing and monitoring initiatives.
He cited successful wellness programs at BC Hydro and TELUS as just a couple of examples of companies that have actively engaged employees at all stages of a new initiative. “As a result, employees are more likely to participate and less likely to feel the program is being imposed on them by management,” he said.
What’s more, the programs that come from those initiatives have other indirect benefits, such as improving employee morale. “Employee morale also influences participation, suggesting a potential synergy between workforce engagement and wellness that employers have not tapped,” Lowe added.
Brenda Bouw is a freelance writer based in Vancouver.
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