How PMI can unlock employee health and wellbeing engagement
With declining rates of health continuing to cause poor productivity and businesses more than ever scrutinising ROI on workplace wellbeing benefits, getting employees engaged in health and wellbeing has never been more important writes Pippa Andrews, Director of Corporate Business, Vitality.
Rising rates of ill-health are one of the biggest challenges facing the workplace and wider society today.
The number of people out of work due to long-term sickness has risen considerably since the pandemic1, whilst the UK’s productivity loss has more than doubled between 2014 and 2023 due to poor employee health2.
Against this backdrop, businesses are grappling with a number of challenges when it comes to employee health and wellbeing.
Even though 63% of workers believe their employer should be doing more to support their health and wellbeing2, we know that encouraging people to change habits and make healthy lifestyle choices is not easy.
Organisational health schemes have also traditionally tended to focus more on managing ill-health when it arises, but not enough on keeping people healthy and happy upstream.
At a time when businesses facing increased financial pressures, demonstrating a strong return on investment (ROI) on workplace health and wellbeing benefits has also become critical – especially with medical inflation on the rise, impacting group health schemes.
Changing Behaviour to create healthier habits
Even though wellness has become ubiquitous and there are more products than ever promising to deliver transformative health benefits, without the right levels of engagement they can be ineffective.
Behavioural economists tell us that, as humans, we are highly irrational but in hugely predictable ways.
Therefore, by harnessing behavioural economics through workplace health and wellbeing schemes, organisations can be much more effective in helping employees to adopt and maintain healthier lifestyle habits.
By influencing behaviour for the better in this way, we can unlock more productivity and generate significant benefits for all parties involved, including employers.
Driving employee engagement
In order to unlock meaningful behaviour change and drive higher levels of engagement, workplace wellbeing programmes have to be appealing and accessible to a diverse workforce, regardless of age and location.
They also need to be communicated effectively and easily accessible through a coherent structure.
This is particularly important with the rise of hybrid and remote working, which have brough flexibility but also fragmentation. Without the social reinforcement and a sense of shared purpose, employees may feel less compelled to take part in activities that promote their health – even if they know it’s good for them.
The power of healthy competition
With growing number of businesses offering health insurance for their staff, and a greater expectation from employees that their employer will offer such benefits, Business Health Insurance that includes a health and wellbeing scheme alongside access to private healthcare, can be the key to unlocking employee engagement.
And, as PMI products have evolved in recent years, they’re now able to offer a broader range of benefits that employees can use 24/7, integrating them into their everyday life, offering a more engaging experience and unlocking genuine health improvements.
Take Vitality’s new digital-first Employee Challenges for example.
Built on the Vitality platform and seamlessly integrated with the broader health and rewards of the Vitality Programme, Employee Challenges allows businesses – regardless of size – to roll out activity-based challenges to their staff.
By tapping into the power of gamification, social accountability – challenges are team-based – and healthy habit formation, Employee Challenges drives higher participation and helps to build a sense of community, which can be particularly useful where hybrid or remote working are prevalent.
The more employees move, the more they then also benefit from all of the rewards in the Vitality Programme – unlocking more value for the employee and employer alike, whilst helping to drive real behaviour change for the better.
Proven to work
The results show that it works, with participants increasing their pre-challenge step activity by 37% and 95% of those who became more active saying they were likely to maintain their levels of activity into the future.
We also know from our data that highly active and engaged Vitality members have 28% lower healthcare costs and increase their life expectancy by as much as up to five years1.
As well as keeping staff happy and healthy, this can unlock productivity gains – perhaps the ultimate ROI for a business. Our research found that the improved health metrics of employees with Vitality Health Insurance equate to an additional 2.5 days of productive time per employee per year1.
All this helps to prove that by using the right nudges and engagement tools at the right time, employee behaviour change can be achieved on a large scale and in a genuinely transformative way that benefits everyone – employees, businesses and society.
Related: Measuring ROI employee wellbeing
Better for your clients. Better for your business.
The Vitality Programme is the world's biggest health promotion programme linked to insurance. We use a combination of rewards and incentives to change your clients' behaviour for the better - and in the long run.
All your clients will get access to the Vitality Programme when they take out a plan with us, helping them to:
- Understand their health
- Get healthier
- Get rewarded
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