[UN]Wellness At Work is Costly
What would it be like if you came to work every day feeling healthy and upbeat, took care of your physical and emotional needs during the work day, and left at the end of the day feeling even more well? Not only would you, the employee, thrive, but, given the statistics on the costs of an unwell workforce, your employer would thrive as well.
[Unwell Statistic #1: Chronic Disease]
The rapidly rising rates of chronic illnesses, such as Type 2 Diabetes and High Blood Pressure, are increasing all over the world and are costing US employers $153 billion each year. (1) Chronic disease affects all employers, not only because of the direct health care costs involved, but because of its hidden costs of lost productivity and absenteeism.
While many companies adopt a measurable, clinical approach to chronic illness with disease risk management programs, the other half of the equation, addressing healthy lifestyles, needs to go beyond health coaching to include a healthy work-lifestyle.
[Unwell Statistic #2: Work-related Injuries]
And then there’s work-related injuries and illnesses, like Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and Low Back Pain for our sedentary avatars. Costs to companies in this category is $250 billion per year. (1)
Just as occupations employing Industrial Athletes have rigorous safety mandates, so should sedentary occupations address the hazards of prolonged sitting and computer time--beyond basic ergonomics.
[Unwell Statistic #3: Work-related Stress]
No longer a hidden cost, job-related stress costs $300 billion each year. (1) Included in this statistic are employee disengagement and burnout. Herein lies the work-chronic illness-stress connection: Work is the source of stress, stress contributes to chronic disease, and chronic disease is the biggest component of our rising health care costs.
Jeffrey Pfeffer, Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford University, writes extensively on our stress-inducing workplaces: I look out at the workplace and I see stress, layoffs, longer hours, work-family conflict, enormous amounts of economic insecurity. I see a workplace that has become shockingly inhumane. (2)
[Unwell Statistic #4: Economic Burden]
The cumulative economic burden of unwellness at work is enormous for both businesses and the economy. In the US, chronic disease, work-related injuries and stress are estimated to cost the economy more than $2.2 trillion every year. (1)
[From Unwell to Well]
These statistics generalize a grim picture of the wellbeing our nation’s workforce. However, there is a compelling case that work CAN be a place of joy and wellness for employees One that aligns wellness for employees and profit for employers. Three recent studies have shown that companies with high ratings for their focus on the wellbeing and safety of their workers had positive outcomes to their bottom line. In these studies, wellness-focused companies
- outperformed the stock market by 3:1 (3)
- have 65% lower turnover (4)
- outperformed by S&P 500 by 115.6 percent (5)
Imagine coming to work not just for the paycheck, but to seek and enhance your wellness and to GET healthy. As more and more businesses and organizations integrate wellness into their core culture and operations, the way we work and the current state of workforce unwellness will improve. Clearly, it has to.
Sources:
- Global Wellness Initiative. The future of wellness at work.(2016). citing Milken Institute, UC-Davis, EU-OSHA, and Gallup
- Walsh, D. The workplace is killing people and nobody cares.Standford Business (March, 2018).
- Goetzel, R. et al. The stock performance of C. Everett Koop Award Winners compared with the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. (2016).
- Great Place to Work Institute. What are the benefits? The ROI on workplace culture.greatplacetowork.com.
- Chamberlain, A. Does company culture pay off? Analyzing stock performance of “Best Places to Work” Companies. Mill Valley, CA: Glassdoor.com.
