Many reap rewards from work wellness

The phenomenal growth in health and wellness programs is not a passing fad but part of a new and healthier workplace paradigm at many offices, according to some of Perth’s leading chief executives.

The CEO Voice series — hosted by the Australian Institute of Management WA and The West Australian newspaper — this week heard that office yoga, lunchtime meditation and workday football matches have become de rigueur at many workplaces.

But while there is widespread agreement that measures that care for employee welfare generally provide positive returns, there are questions over what constitutes an effective program.

Are all employers getting bang for their buck, or are they simply throwing money at ineffective providers seeking to cash in on the health and wellness revolution?

Furthermore, do the programs address the big issues of alcoholism and mental health — the two problems with the biggest impact on wellness and workplace productivity?

Or are the programs focused on relatively simple issues experienced by the least vulnerable employees in the workplace?

Keynote speaker Rob Bransby, managing director of HBF, said employers need to take the issue seriously, claiming comprehensive health and wellness programs improve productivity as well as reduce absenteeism, workers compensation claims and costly staff turnover.

“Are managers expected to be concerned about the personal welfare of their (staff) as well as their business’ key performance indicators?” he said.

“I say yes.”

HBF takes a holistic view about how to care for its staff, providing physical, career, community, financial, emotional and social support.

“It’s just not about moving more and eating less,” he said.

About 200 businesses in Perth contract HBF to provide health and wellness support for 17,000 employees, some spending more than $150,000 a year, but Mr Bransby claims many employers pay lip service to the notion of looking after staff.

“How often does a CEO get up in front of a group of people and say our best asset is our people,” he asked.

“(But) not too many say (they) put a lot of money into health and wellness.”

The case for adopting such programs is based on a compelling set of statistics, Mr Bransby said.

Healthier Workplace WA claims the unhealthiest workers take nine times more sick days a year than healthy workers, and healthy workers are three times more productive than their unhealthy counterparts.

The direct cost to Australian employers of stress-related absenteeism and presenteeism is $10.11 billion.

On average, more than three days are lost to stress per worker per year.

The issue takes on a greater dimension when you consider the ageing workforce means the number of post-retirement age employees will jump from 12.9 per cent at present, to 17.3 per cent in 40 years time.

“These are people who in the future will be on your payroll,” he said.

Mr Bransby said workplace design had a role to play in promoting health and wellness.

HBF spent $800,000 on providing its 150 staff with stand-up, sit-down desks, connected to apps that record standing time.

That is in response to evidence that sustained immobility significantly increases the likelihood of diabetes, heart disease, obesity and cancer.

Mr Bransby said he expected one day every employee would be given an Apple watch, which has an accelerometer, a heart rate monitor and sensors that report daily activity and workouts, prompting users to get up and walk if they are sedentary for too long.

The emergence of such measures has been criticised by some as Big Brother tactics, but Mr Bransby said talented employees, especially those from Gen-Y, choose employers that offer such programs.

Palmerston Association chief executive Sheila McHale said the benefit of such programs was recognised but most of them failed to address the biggest problem in the workplace — alcohol.

Alcohol and other drugs cost Australian workplaces $6 billion a year in lost productivity and absenteeism.

“The impact of alcohol on the workplace is bigger, surprisingly, than it is on the health and the criminal systems,” she told the forum.

Ms McHale said society had developed a much more empathetic response to mental health problems, but employers still took a punitive approach to workers who made alcohol-related mistakes, often imposing three-strikes and you’re out policies.

“There is a gap in relation to health and wellness programs and alcohol,” she said.

“And there is an attitude problem, a reluctance to look at our responses to alcohol, even though we know it is the biggest drug problem in Australia and the biggest cost to workplaces.”

PwC partner Tricia Tebbutt said employers needed to build trust within the workforce by ensuring that an admission of a problem was not linked to disciplinary action.

Cancer Council chief executive Susan Rooney said the council had recognised this challenge. To counteract this, the council embedded in its policies a statement to encourage workers to seek help for alcohol-related problems, and a promise to help them address these issues.

There were similar problems with mental illness, Lifeline WA chief executive Fiona Kalaf said.
She said there was still a stigma attached to mental illness and this discouraged workers from seeking help from their employers.

Likewise, employers failed to address it in their workplace programs, partly because of general failure to recognise the symptoms.

She said it was imperative to change the culture, given the fact that at any one time, 20 per cent of the workforce was likely to be struggling with mental illness.

“We started decades ago in risk management framework, protecting an employee (from harm), and over the past decade we have moved into physical health and safety,” she said.

“But I think a lot of employers are still coming to grips with how to manage those risks let alone (figuring out) how to help people mentally in the workplace.”

Diabetes WA health services prevention unit manager Laura Zappa agreed workplace programs needed to have a greater focus on mental health and alcohol, but said these addressed such issues indirectly by promoting a healthier workplace culture.

She said that employers considered alcohol to be “off limits” in workplace programs.

“Coming from a (previous) position where I was trying to sell policy and supportive workplaces to employers, alcohol is an area they don’t want to go near,” she said.

“They see it as a person’s own responsibility.”

The participants in the forum agreed it was challenging to find wellness measures that appealed to all staff, with introverts and extroverts typically responding to different things.

Furthermore, the people least likely to engage in workplace programs, such as group yoga, were often the ones who were most in need.

Wood & Grieve Engineers chief executive Jose Granado said his firm sought to appeal to all types by using a vast array of programs, including professional massages, lunchtime football and cricket matches, and twice-weekly flex and stretch classes.

Mr Granado said it was well worth the cost, claiming his company did not cut any programs during the global financial crisis.

“We spend a third of our lives at work — that’s a hell of a long time to be unhappy at work,” he said.
Heart Foundation chief executive Maurice Swanson agreed wellness initiatives were well worth the cost because they prevented costlier health problems.

He said the urgent need for preventative programs had not filtered through to the healthcare sector where only 1.7 per cent of Australia’s total $160 billion expenditure was spent on prevention.

But not all wellness programs are created equal, and some employers were wasting money by failing to measure the results and customise their programs, according to Eoghan McKenna, managing director of Logic Health.

Mr McKenna said one client spent $200,000 on wellness programs with another provider but had no measure of how well it had worked.

He said he implemented a measurement system that reduced that company’s overall program spending by directing it more strategically based on concrete metrics.

Lotterywest chief executive Paul Andrew said managers needed to lead by example. Failure to do so made the programs appear to be lip-service efforts, under-mining efforts to change the culture.

Taryn Quartermaine, manager of Health on the Move, confirmed staff engagement was highly influenced by senior managers, in what she called the “trickle down” effect.

Russell Gibbs, chief executive of property group Hawaiian, said the focus on health was now so prominent that rental properties not offering end-of-trip facilities were penalised.

He said programs were often cut in tough economic times, but he urged employers to maintain them.

“Do it because it is the right thing to do,” he said.