Survey highlights rise in company well-being initiatives

Source: CIPD absence management report 2010

Survey findings

Levels of absenteeism

Absenteeism remained low in 2010 compared with the previous 10 years, with an average of 7.7 working days per employee per year lost to absence. This incurred a median cost of GBP 600 (€710 as at 11 February 2011) per employee per year.

Despite these low levels of absence, there is growing concern over ‘presenteeism’ (being present at work while feeling ill or being unable to work at normal capacity) and the negative effect this has for organisations (UK0911039Q). Well-being initiatives are designed to minimise loss of working time.

Employer well-being initiatives

The report reveals an increase in the number of employers with an employee well-being strategy or something similar in place. Nearly half (46%) of employers offered some form of well-being initiative compared with 33% of organisations in 2009 and 30% in 2008.

Public sector organisations are more likely to have an employee well-being strategy, with around two thirds indicating they offered well-being initiatives (66% compared with 38–44% in the other sectors). Larger organisations were also more likely to have an employee well-being strategy (5,000 employees: 80%; 1–49 employees: 29%).

Well-being initiatives vary in both their scope and access by employees. The most common well-being benefit is access to counselling, reported by 62% of respondents.

However, there is a marked difference in provision between sectors with around half of manufacturing and production (49%) and private sector (48%) companies offering benefits. This compares with much higher levels in both public sector (87%) and non-profit organisations (78%).

There are also sectoral differences in terms of the type of well-being benefits offered. The public sector is more likely to provide benefits within the workplace including:

• advice on healthy eating;

• healthy canteen options;

• physiotherapy;

• walking/pedometer;

• in-house gym;

• personalised healthy eating programmes for employees.

This contrasts with private sector organisations which were likely to provide insurances for employees including:

• medical insurance;

• disability and health insurance or income protection;

• critical illness;

• dental insurance.

Employee access to well-being benefits can depend upon seniority. For example, where private medical insurance is provided (22% of all respondents), 33% of initiatives are contingent on the seniority or position in the hierarchy of an employee in the organisation to qualify for the well-being initiative.

A key finding is that those few organisations that do evaluate their employee well-being strategy (17%) are twice as likely to have increased their spending on well-being initiatives in 2010 (41% compared with 20% in 2009). These organisations were also more likely to predict an increased spend for 2011 (30% compared with 17% in 2009). This suggests that organisations consider well-being initiatives a worthwhile investment.

Commentary

This study is published against an overall decline in the rate of absenteeism at work in the UK. However, increases in both ‘presenteeism’ and instances of stress emphasise the importance of employee well-being as opposed to rules or sanctions connected with absenteeism (UK0911039Q). Although the uptake of well-being initiatives is still below half of UK organisations, the most recent figure shows a continuing growth in their adoption. In addition, the findings indicate that organisations that have invested and evaluated their initiatives are likely to continue or to increase financial support for well-being initiatives.

Although overall provision of well-being initiatives has increased nationally, there are broad differences between the kinds of benefits offered to employees and there is some disparity between employee entitlement to benefits based on hierarchy or seniority.

Alex Wilson, IRRU, University of Warwick