Evidence accumulated over the past few decades shows that well-designed workplace health promotion programmes founded on evidence-based principles can achieve positive health outcomes for employees and yield higher economic returns for employers.
Workplace health promotion programmes (WHP) are coordinated and comprehensive sets of health promotion and protection strategies that are implemented at the worksites and may include programmes, policies, benefits, and environmental supports designed to better the health, safety, and wellbeing of all employees and often of their family members. Occasionally, these may have links to the resources available in the surrounding neighbourhood or communities where the employees live or are from. These programmes include initiatives designed to avert the occurrence of new diseases or the progression of chronic disease from its early stage to a more severe one. Employers may choose from a set of established health promotion programmes or create their own to maximise the likelihood of improving the general health of employees as well as impact specific health dimensions like sleep, stress, anxiety, depression, quality of life, and job burnout.
Research findings support that benefits to employers from these programmes include higher productivity, less absenteeism, reduced turnover, higher job satisfaction, employee morale, and lower healthcare costs. A higher reputation created thereby can help an employer to recruit and retain the bright and best employees.
According to the American Time Use Survey, on average, adults spend 8.8 hr per day in work and work-related activities. Employers in the USA recognise the burden and cost obesity and poor health behaviours of the workers affecting the organisations as they view their workforce as a corporate strategic asset; employees' physical fitness level appears to have been low and declining in general over the last several decades in the USA as a host of chronic diseases afflict large segment of the population.
Employers are large purchasers of healthcare through insurance premiums in the United States and other high-income countries and the growing prevalence of chronic diseases among employees driving up the total health-related costs in their workplace. Recent research has shown a much greater connection between employee health and productivity in the workplace. For example, a small reduction in working time through breaks to allow for employee physical activity actually increases their productivity since the same, or higher, production level can be achieved with less effort, resources, and time. As a result, effective wellness programmes result in cost savings for employers.
Most large employers in the industrial economies have initiated corporate fitness programmes on-site as well as other wellness programmes (e.g., smoking cessation, serving healthy food at the cafeteria, etc) whose objectives are to raise employees' health awareness and encourage their participation in healthy living programmes and promote positive health behaviours.
Very few large -- mostly multinational -- employers in Bangladesh have started such initiatives for their employees, albeit on a very limited scale. Evaluating such employers' workplace health programmes and how employers can improve these has not been undertaken, however. Attempts should be made to examine the flexibility of company policy regarding WHP, assess perceived workplace health programme support by the supervisors, and monitor the health status of the employees. Additionally, assessments of the impact of having an on-site fitness centre and examining the overall company work culture on employee health would be useful. Research on the development of measurement instruments such as the Worksite Health Climate Survey and the Leading by Example (LBE) instrument will make researchers and practitioners confident to evaluate healthy workplace practices and determine their contribution to employees and organisational performance.
Evidence suggests that the support of business owners and senior management is an essential component in the success of WHP. Several research studies have evaluated WHP as a healthcare cost-saving strategy. For example, medical costs to employers declined an average of $3.27 for every $1 spent on wellness programmes. Other studies, on average, reported a favourable return on investment associated with worksite wellness programmes. Employers lay a major role in covering the health insurance of employees in most industrialised, high-income countries and this workplace-provided benefit is quite limited to offer yet in Bangladesh. A few employers cover employees' and their family members' health expenses but in most cases, it is only the hospital costs.
Large employers in Bangladesh may initiate "best practice" health and wellness programmes and an on-site gym can be their first step to have. Public health researchers may start to answer questions such as how satisfied are employees with these programmes and, why employers offer what they offer, and not other more comprehensive packages.
Given the growing prevalence of chronic illnesses in Bangladesh among the working-age adult population and the higher participation of older age people in the labour force, corporate policies should enable and encourage employees to live a healthier lifestyle. It is important to establish a culture of health where employees are able to make healthy life choices and the larger social environment should also value, provide and promote options that are capable of producing health and well-being for everyone. Bangladeshi employers are lagging behind in taking care of their employee's health.
Dr Hasnat M Alamgir is Professor and Chair of Public Health at IUBAT (International University of Business Agriculture and Technology), Dhaka. [email protected]
