The Need for Early Intervention Strategies in Workplace Wellbeing
Workplace absenteeism is at a 10 year high despite a multitude of wellbeing services being used.
The cost per employee per annum for absenteeism ranges from £6,500 to £522 depending on various factors such as duration of sickness, interim replacement costs, nature of illness etc. The current 10 year absenteeism highs, reported in the CIPD September 2023, are due to stress. The second highest cause of absenteeism is due to musculoskeletal disorders. Both of these are preventable through early intervention strategies.
At Always Fit Health, our data-led wellbeing strategies help companies quickly identify risk segments for early intervention and timely support using realtime employee data (anonymised). Employers are better placed to understand the overall issues of their workforce thus provide appropriate solutions to mitigate the risk of absenteeism and presenteeism. We provide a range of workshops that focus on helping employees understand how to activate an healthy adjustment process when facing life’s many challenges with the aim of seeing ways through difficult situations more clearly. This helps build stronger and more adaptable relationships as they put solution-focused action plans into place. Our workshops also help reduce musculoskeletal-related issues and improving general immunity.
The benefits and return on investment of investing in strategic preventative and early intervention services for employees will far exceed the investment. Our services cost a fraction of what it costs a company on absenteeism.
To quote Claudia Nicholls, chief customer officer at Simplyhealth, in the CIPD report : "With record numbers of people off sick, employers have a vital role to play in supporting them through workplace health and wellbeing services. They can have a positive impact on the economy and ease pressure on the NHS.
Despite an increasing number of workplace health and wellbeing services being put in place, employees are experiencing increasing mental health issues and the highest rate of sickness absence in a decade. However, focusing on fixing sickness alone is unlikely to uncover areas where any significant improvements can be made; companies need to implement preventative health and wellbeing strategies that are supported by the most senior levels of leadership and build line manager skills and confidence to support wellbeing."