Strategy for workforce health needed

World Heath Day, which is celebrated on April 7 every year, should remind employers to attach greater importance to the health of employees.

In the Towers Watson's 2013/2014 Staying@Work survey, which surveyed 892 organizations around the world, across all major industries, the 85 companies in China viewed their workforce as the least healthy in the Asia-Pacific region. The respondents indicated that on average more than four of the seven risk areas listed were causes for concern in their work force. Lack of physical activity was rated as the most prevalent health risk, 78 percent indicated this is a top risk for their workforce, with stress ranked as a close second, 77 percent.

Yet while over three-quarters of the employers surveyed in China identified stress as a concern, few of them were taking action. The most common tactic used by employers to promote stress management was specialized training for employees, but it was only used by 44 percent; followed by education and awareness campaigns 33 percent, training for managers 29 percent and flexible working options 27 percent. And few employers were making use of existing resources such as their employee assistance programs. Our analysis and experience suggests expanding the EAPs to dependants, and developing a rebranding campaign to remove social barriers and taboo around it are effective best practices.

Similarly, employers ranked tobacco use as the third-biggest risk to their workforce, and this was the highest for the Asia-Pacific, yet China is close to lowest in the region for having tobacco cessation programs: 9 percent compared to 16 percent in India, 8 percent in Singapore and 12 percent in Southeast Asia.

In China, 60 percent of employers believe health and productivity are essential to their organizational health strategy, and the rate should continue to grow - 66 percent expect their organization's support of health and productivity programs to increase over the next two years. However the proportion of employers with no global strategy and no plans to adopt one is overwhelming: 71 percent compared to 30 percent in the Asia-Pacific and 28 percent in the United States; although employers in China have set their sights on changing this. In the next three years, almost half of the respondents, 47 percent, said they aim not only to adopt a formal strategy, but also to communicate it effectively and use it to differentiate themselves from talent competitors.

All countries and sub-regions surveyed in Asia cited inadequate employee engagement as the biggest obstacle to changing employee health behaviour, except those in China, who claimed they had adequate budget and staff to support effective health management programs. However, this discrepancy represents a misperception of what makes for an effective strategy, since our research shows some of the best practices are things that can be done with little or no budget and are not necessarily tangible, such as sponsoring self-managed health and productivity affinity groups, such as running clubs and support groups, crowd sourcing information and feedback to improve programs and making sure health and productivity programs are connected to broader organizational initiatives.