The Employee Wellness Solutions Network podcast recently interviewed CoreHealth CEO Anne Marie Kirby about today’s most important employee wellness topics.
Below are interview highlights or watch the full discussion here:
For more information about the Employee Wellness Solutions Network visit their website.
Elevate the Conversation Around Healthy People at Work
In many workplaces, the focus of healthcare is becoming less about reactive, quick-fix medicine. Instead, leaders are seeing the benefits of preventive health, and creating a culture where health and wellbeing are a focus. The effect of workplace corporate culture is becoming more clearly linked with productivity, lower turnover, and boosts to the bottom line, and employers are starting to taking notice. An industry trend of the moment that Kirby has seen first-hand is to focus on two aspects of health: preventing issues before they begin and creating a culture of health in the workplace.
Preventive Healthcare
Why preventative health care? As the adage “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” reminds us, it’s proven to be hugely more cost effective to prevent an illness than to cure it. This is true in terms of dollars spent on health care, time spent away from work for care, and productivity lost due to illness. Prevention is truly a business strategy. And the first step toward prevention is to look at the root cause of disease.
Preventing disease is the opposite of reacting to an illness occurrence, and an added benefit is increased employee productivity. Employee productivity is still conspicuously low in many industries, and this can be traced back to ill health as a root cause. If workers are unhealthy, it’s much harder for them to be productive and engaged. Because of these findings, preventative health (including wellness programs, creating a culture of health, and generally nipping disease in the bud) has become a viable business strategy, rather than a fringe HR benefit.
In the interview, Kirby compares modern-day wellness practices to old-fashioned worksite occupational health and safety procedures. In the past, she reminds us, worksite safety practices were not a given, and may even have been an extra perk, or as simply a nice addition to a workplace. Today, however, workplace safety practices are a legal requirement and a basic expectation in any workplace. It’s time for wellness to get the same recognition, Kirby says, and the trend is for that to be the reality in more and more workplaces. Wellness is going to the forefront of company policy; and with all of the proof that it’s good for individuals as well as for business, it’s clear to see why.
Corporate Culture
Workplace corporate culture is one of the most influential forces in employee wellness and disease prevention. A workplace that emphasizes healthy lifestyle, stress management, burnout prevention, and relationship building is more likely to see high productivity and efficiency. Kirby advocates creating a culture of kindness and health as a starting place to excellent worksite culture. Caring about people, and their wellbeing, is where a worksite wellness program can play a large part in leading the way to a healthy workforce in general. Starting a worksite wellness program, or improving upon your existing program, is easier than ever with all of the third-party or in-house wellness programming options becoming available. Cultivating a culture of health is the first step in creating a healthy workforce.
Value on Caring
The fact that caring about employees and their overall wellbeing boosts motivation, productivity, company loyalty, and more, is becoming a normal part of business practice discussion. The shift we’re seeing, Kirby says, is a movement away from return on investment, and toward value on caring. The returns come in the form of boosts to the bottom line, increased engagement, lower turnover, and overall improved performance. The main point: efforts toward caring and wellness (specifically disease prevention) are worthwhile.
Where is the Industry Going?
More executives are justifying wellness and emphasizing caring for people. From a business perspective, it makes sense: there is a clear link between preventing disease and decreasing leave-taking, absence, and disability. Employers have more wellness tools available than ever that give them the ability to improve worksite culture and decreasing the effect of disease in the workplace. Wellness is mainstream HR solution, and that’s good business sense.
Thank you to Employee Wellness Solutions Network for including us in this ongoing discussion!
Learn how technology can help with preventive healthcare
About CoreHealth Technologies
CoreHealth Technologies Inc. is a leading all-in-one corporate wellness platform trusted by wellness providers to power their health and wellbeing programs for 3+ million employees worldwide. At CoreHealth, we believe that developing the best employee wellness programs is all about giving providers the right code, design and access to best-in-class innovations. With the most customization, integrations and reliability of any software in its class, CoreHealth’s powerful platform lets users focus on growing great wellness companies. For more information, visit the CoreHealth website or visit our YouTube Channel.
