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Can you connect wellness and engagement? Mar 7, 2010 By Jennifer Benz
It is the question every benefits pro has to answer: Is a wellness initiative a worthwhile investment? While many of us would instinctively answer “yes!”, you can’t make a case for funding off of instinct.
“The Wellness Imperative: Creating More Effective Organizations”, recently released by Right Management, would certainly have you believing so. This study looks at the links between wellness initiatives in the workplace and performance, engagement, retention and innovation. Their results might surprise you.
Here are some of the key findings from the study:
- Sixty-five percent of respondents who identified their organizations as “one of the best performing organizations in its sector” also responded favorably to the statement, “My organization actively promotes health and well-being.”
- Among those who supported the proposition that their organization actively promotes health and well-being, 73% also identified their workplace as highly productive.
- In organizations perceived as actively promoting health and well-being, 55% of employees reported being engaged. In organizations not so perceived, by contrast, only 7% of employees reported being engaged.
- Seventy-two percent of respondents who rated their organization highly for actively promoting health and well-being also rated it highly for encouraging creativity and innovation.
- Of those who take a favorable view of their organization’s efforts, only 5% plan to stay for under one year, while 64% plan to stay for at least five years.
Comments
Very Enlightening! As a whole we have all come closer and closer to stepping it up a notch from generic "wellness" or "wellbeing" to true health and productivity management - managing health to increase productivity. Wellness is a nice, soft word with little tangible impact. Wellness gives the impression that there is this pace of wellness or wellbeing that we can attain through improved health. We all know that place is hard to achieve and even harder to maintain. Health management is a process, not a place. It recognizes the need for ongoing employee engagement and employee investment in their own health. The only reason an employer would get involved - long-term - is if it would benefit the employer in some way, either with happier or healthier (mentally and/or physically) employees. Common sense says that would improve the employees view of the employer while making the employees more productive. If it makes no tangible difference to the employer they will drop "wellness" in favor of some other feel good program in the coming years. Unfortunately, it is inevitable that without some return on the investment or effort or some traceable result, "wellness" programs will peak and fade in popularity as companies work their way through budget cycles.
—Paul Cantwell, about 1 year ago