Can your business afford not to have employee health KPI’s?

By Dr Gill Singleton MBBS FRACGP FARGP MPH

Unprecedented and challenging are two adjectives that most of us can relate to, when reflecting on our experience of 2020. Between the personal impacts of lockdowns, including adding home schooling expert to our list of skills, needing to pivot to do business differently and working remotely creating disconnection with our colleagues, we’ve all been on a steep learning curve.

The COVID-19 pandemic has made health a priority for most of us, in our workplaces specifically keeping our teams safe and managing the mental health impacts. How many of us have meaningful health KPIs or consider prevention of chronic disease as part of our MO? Here are a few reasons why looking to the future, all employers will need to have effective strategies for proactive health prevention in their workplaces.

In 2020 public health was thrust into the spotlight globally and we all had to adapt, requiring innovation which would have otherwise taken a long time to implement. So, this seems like a perfect time to establish strategies for prevention. We can’t leave this up to the government to fix. Australia spends a mere 1.34% of annual healthcare expenditure on prevention, this isn’t enough to even scratch the surface of some of our biggest public health challenges (1). Looking ahead, we need an integrated, collaborative approach between government, employers, the health sector and communities, as this impacts all of us.

Pre-COVID, the health costs to businesses were well recognised, particularly the most visible measures, absenteeism due to sick leave and workers compensation claims, as well as high staff turnover and the much more difficult to measure, presenteeism. Presenteeism relates to employees who are physically working but not able to be productive due to poor health. It is estimated that these cost Australian businesses A$51B per year. There is good evidence that the risk factors for the common chronic diseases, as well as established mental and physical chronic conditions, contribute substantially to these costs (2-12).

As a health professional, I understand that individual lifestyle risk factors such as diet, exercise and habits like smoking, are obviously an important part of chronic disease prevention however these are only part of the puzzle. Another vital piece, in that most of us spend a big proportion of our life at work, is that our work can have either adverse or protective impacts on our risk of future chronic disease. There are multiple measurable workplace factors that can impact physical and mental health of employees in the short and long term. Examples include workplace stress, job strain, shift and length of hours worked, perception of feeling valued and supported by employers, prolonged sitting, job insecurity, levels of satisfaction and rewards provided relative to effort. These factors combine with and often exacerbate individual lifestyle factors to increase risk of musculoskeletal injuries, cardiovascular disease like hypertension, heart attacks and strokes, diabetes and mental health conditions. Workplaces are perfectly positioned to play an effective role in supporting employees to be healthier, through multiple mechanisms, including:

• use of peer support in the work community to establish healthier habits;

• reducing obstacles to accessing appropriate health care and screening and

• addressing workplace contributions to increased risk and less than ideal lifestyle choices.

There is strong evidence that this creates a ‘win-win’ scenario for organisations by reducing health costs and contributes to a more positive and resilient culture, where employees feel valued.

As an interesting demonstration of how risk factors and conditions don’t exist in a silo but intersect with each other, musculoskeletal injuries are by far the most common reason for a workers compensation claim in Australia. A specific muscle, tendon or joint injury at work would have the same impacts on anyone right? Wrong.

If an employee experiences psychological risk factors at work, they are both at increased risk of actually being injured and making a claim, as well as having a prolonged claim secondary to a slower than expected return to work (13,14). If you’ve ever spoken to an employee who is on a long workers compensation path, it is not a healthy or inspiring place to be. Understanding the complex tapestry of risk factors and chronic conditions, creates exciting possibilities to intervene early, and to lay foundations for sustainable health strategies in workplaces.

Setting KPIs is a way to communicate that your business takes health seriously. Implementing effective programs to identify, track and manage health risks, most importantly, supports employees to be happier, healthier and live longer lives, but also saves your business money. Who would say no to that?

It’s brilliant to see, that prevention is on the national agenda with the draft of the Federal Department of Health Preventive Health Strategy 2021-30 having recently been released . This strategy makes it clear that it is time for us all to work together and to intervene early, to support individuals and workplaces to identify and manage risks for healthier, happier futures, as frankly, we can’t afford not to.

To learn more about the creating a health workplace, download our whitepaper - The Why and How of Healthy Work: 7 Simple Questions Everyone Should be Asking

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