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Healthy employees make a healthy business Poor employee health and absenteeism is costing Australian business $7 billion annually
Pyke Family Wellbeing is a boutique provider of innovative and successful corporate health services.
We provide health management programs that are designed to maximise workplace performance, minimise workplace health problems and related costs to businesses, and help businesses create a culture of care and commitment.
I believe that energy management is the answer to most individual health problems and most companies’ productivity problems. Are we almost out of fuel to run the world?
For years we’ve been asking this question about our oil supply. It’s an important, frightening question. But at Pyke Wellbeing we are at least as interested in a slight variation on it: Are we almost out of human fuel to run the world?
We now consume human energy at an unprecedented rate. Yet for far too many of us, the human energy well has run dangerously dry?
In my 12 years of running a wellbeing health care office I have seen too many “walking dead”. People whose lives, particularly whose jobs, make more and more demands on them until, finally, they’ve started to break down physically, the light slowly leaving them. In sport this condition is called overtraining. No amount of youthful vigour can alter this basic equation – you cannot expend more energy than you create.
Each individual energy crisis robs that person of the ability to participate, and participate well, in his or her own life, in the workplace, in significant relationships and in society.
A Medibank Private study has found that the healthiest Australian employees are almost three times more productive than their unhealthy colleagues.
An ageing workforce, and a skills shortage faced by many industries, is making the issue of employee health more pressing for employers. Many employers are becoming increasingly engaged in the health of their employees not only to be socially responsible, but to improve company performance.
Studies suggest that employees with poor overall health status are far more likely to be absent from work, and are nine times more likely to have sick days, compared to healthy employees. Lifestyle ‘risk’ factors such as smoking, drinking, lack of physical activity and excess weight contribute to this time away from work. Employee morale and stress in the workforce contributed significantly to absenteeism and sick leave.
"Work place physical activity programs can reduce short term sick leave (by up to 32 percent), reduce health care costs (by up to 50 percent), and increase productivity (by up to 52 percent).” - World Health Organisation
Absenteeism
The Medibank Private survey found that Australian employees with poor health behaviours have up to nine times the annual sickness absence of healthy individuals (18 days compared to two days per year)
Performance
Presenteeism considers the extent to which employees are productive and engaged in their work.
The study also examined how health status relates to self-assessed work performance (on a scale of 0-10) for this group of working Australians.
The results show a clear association between performance at work and overall health status.
Workers with a high HWB score rated their work performance much higher. In fact, there is a twofold better work performance for the healthiest individuals compared to the least healthy
International studies
A literature review by Monash University, commissioned by Medibank Private, examined the role of workplace health on work performance. A review of literature from more than 152 studies worldwide was consistent with the findings of the Australian online survey – that health impacts upon productivity at work. For example, a Canadian study examining the link between an employee’s emotional well-being and their work productivity found that a 20% reduction in a person’s well-being leads to a 10% drop in their performance. Conversely, a 20% improvement in morale leads to a reduction in absenteeism, turnover and workers compensation
 The effects of a healthy workforce
Findings from workplace studies reviewed by Monash University suggest that companies that introduce workplace health programs enhance employee performance.
Research has found: - economic benefits of health and safety activities as they help curb absenteeism and enhance productivity and efficiency;
- employees that participate in workplace fitness programs report improvements in anxiety, stress and psychological well-being; and
- Importantly, even employees who don’t utilise programs and benefits are still more likely to be loyal and satisfied with the organisation for being offered the program in the first place
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