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Missing the target: Workplace wellness programmes fail to offer what workers want

Companies must engage with staff on what works for them and how to access benefits as uptake remains slow

Employers recognise that a happy workforce is a more productive one and most are prepared to provide supports: where they go wrong is by deciding what to offer without employee input. Photograph: iStock

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Olive Keogh
Thu Dec 14 2023 - 10:00

Employers planning to introduce, improve or review their wellbeing policies in 2024 would do well to get smart about what initiatives actually work.

Benefits have been on the increase in recent years, but the uptake often remains stubbornly low because there’s a costly mismatch between what employees want and what their employers think they want.

The main reason programmes fall flat is because they’re irrelevant, says Tom Curran, head of wellbeing at employee benefits company Lockton People Solutions. Also getting in the way is poor communication about the benefits available and difficulties in accessing them.

Employee assistance programmes kicked off in the US in the 1940s in an effort to help workers with alcohol problems. Eighty years on, they’re still going strong although opinion remains divided about how valuable they really are. But while positive wellbeing might be hard to measure, its opposite is not. It translates into sick days, diminished job performance and poor staff retention rates.

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Workplace consultancy and research company Gallup attempted to put a cost on some aspects of poor wellbeing. It estimates that three-quarters of medical costs accrued annually by companies are due to preventable conditions. It puts the global cost of employee burnout at over $300 billion (€278 billion) every year and says that employees who are not thriving are at high risk of burnout and stress.

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Most enlightened employers recognise that a happy workforce is a more productive one and are quite prepared to provide supports and benefits. Where they go wrong, Curran says, is by deciding what to offer without employee input.

“Very often, by focusing too much on wellness ‘activities’, companies fail to consider employees’ real needs and regularly miss the target as a result,” he says.

Asked for a list of the benefits employees consider most useful, Curran says this varies according to age and life stage. However, in very broad terms it’s possible to divide supports into three main categories: physical health, mental health and lifestyle/living which would include flexible working and everyday benefits such as shopping vouchers and bike schemes.

Topping the list in the physical health benefits category are sports screening for active employees and general health checks which would include ECGs, lung function tests and checks for high blood pressure and high cholesterol.

“How the tests are selected is also important because health risks can be age-related,” Curran says. “So, a good programme will suggest what tests would be the most beneficial to someone at their life stage.”

At number two is support for those with a chronic illness such as cancer, COPD or diabetes. Asked for an example of what type of support could be offered here, Curran suggests that employers could consider paying for real-time glucose monitors for those living with diabetes as they are a gamechanger in terms of improving quality of life but may be too expensive for employees not entitled to them free under the Irish health system.

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Also important to employees are gender-specific health initiatives such as prostate screening and fertility and menopause support.

Moving into the mental health arena, training in resilience and stress management as well as help for anxiety of all sorts, are considered priorities and this could extend to offering supports, such as independent financial advice for employees with money worries.

Specifically in relation to counselling/therapy, Curran says there needs to be a move away from limiting the number of sessions an employee can have. “You can’t assume someone is ‘cured’ after five or six sessions or whatever the arbitrary number is,” he says. “There needs to be flexibility and/or some form of follow-on support.

“The pathway to an effective programme starts with an evaluation of the demographics,” he adds. “What is the age spread and how is that likely to affect what people will want? That’s one side of the coin. The other is asking people what would make their lives better at work.

Few organisations have the budget to implement everything in one go, but draw up a roadmap and commit to rolling it out over several years. That way employees can see that the business is doing its best for them. Programmes can be costly so companies need to spend their money wisely and to review what they’re paying for versus what people are actually using.”

But having the best programmes in the world is useless unless they’re easy to get at, Curran says, adding that the uptake on employee assistance programmes can be as low as 3 per cent because the “how” of their delivery falls short.

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To illustrate this, he gives the example of someone in mental health distress. An organisation may have good supports in place to help, but to access them the person has to go through their manager or the HR department when what they need is a direct and confidential way of connecting with a mental health practitioner.

Getting the message out that the benefits are there for the asking also means tuning in to how different cohorts prefer to communicate.

So, while older workers might feel comfortable picking up the phone to access a benefit, younger employees are more likely to engage if they can do so by text. “Changing the access point can make a real difference,” Curran says. “By introducing a WhatsApp channel, one employer saw programme utilisation jump from 3 to 12 per cent which is astonishing.”

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