Why Corporate Health?
Our latest report "Financial Cost Benefits: Improving Your Bottom Line" contains numerous case studies which look at the financial benefit of implementing health and wellbeing programs and incentives in your workplace, along with suggestions for program design and implementation. Click the image on your left to read more about how you can improve the productivity and profitability of your organisation.
In recent years we have seen an increase in stress across all facets of life, a huge portion of which resides in the workplace. According to VicHealth studies approximately 7.7million Australian's spend one third to a quarter of their waking lives at work. It's therefore not surprising that we are seeing workplace stress emerging as a major cause of physical and mental health problems. Meanwhile the Australian National Audit Office estimates that $136 million could be saved in the public sector alone if the bottom 75% of government agencies were to reduce their absenteeism to the level of top performing agencies. In addition it is estimated that the direct cost of workplace injury and disease in Australia is over 7 billion per year nationally.
Obesity, bad for business as well as health
An American study has shown that, in addition to damaging their own physical health, overweight and obese workers are damaging the fiscal health of their employers. For the study, researchers from the Centre for the Advancement of Health surveyed 7,338 working individuals, focusing on the areas of missed work time, reduced work effectiveness and impairment of daily activities. Obese people and type II diabetes sufferers lost between 11 and 15 per cent of work time (equating to about 5.9 hours per week) due to health problems.
Anne Wolf, an instructor at the University of Virginia School of Medicine and specialist in the field of the economic effects of obesity, said that the findings support previous research that drew a correlation between increasing weight and higher levels of lost productivity in the workplace. She noted, however, that the new study had found an independent effect of diabetes on worker productivity. Advocating a greater degree of employer involvement in employee health and wellbeing, Wolf said, ‘Employers who spend money in a lifestyle intervention will find their investment returned to them in the form of increased productivity and reduced absenteeism’. Source: American Journal of Health Promotion.
Anne Wolf, an instructor at the University of Virginia School of Medicine and specialist in the field of the economic effects of obesity, said that the findings support previous research that drew a correlation between increasing weight and higher levels of lost productivity in the workplace. She noted, however, that the new study had found an independent effect of diabetes on worker productivity. Advocating a greater degree of employer involvement in employee health and wellbeing, Wolf said, ‘Employers who spend money in a lifestyle intervention will find their investment returned to them in the form of increased productivity and reduced absenteeism’. Source: American Journal of Health Promotion.