You know an idea is beginning to take off when entrepreneurs try to make money out of it.
Four years ago, I wandered into the offices of Vielife, a health and well-being management company, and admired the bowl of fruit on the meeting room table. At the time, the idea that employee health might go beyond the remit of the company medical department was novel. Then, last week I noticed a press release from a company called Fruit on Demand offering a London-based delivery of boxed fruit to offices. Yes, in four short years, employee health has entered the mainstream. Those office vending machines with fizzy drinks, chocolate bars and crisps look like relics of a misguided past.
The new thinking is all juice and pips. I'm sure office cleaners love separating paper waste from apple cores and orange peel. But they must get used to it, because health evangelism has entered the boardroom in a campaign to include employee well-being in annual reports.
A group called Business Action on Health, set up by Business In The Community and some of its member companies, has committed itself to raising the measuring and reporting of employee health among FTSE 100 companies from the current rate of 7 pe cent to 75 per cent by 2011. The group, chaired by Alex Gourlay, chief executive of Boots UK, the retail arm of Alliance Boots, is seeking to extend measuring and reporting within four areas:
- Employee health and absence measurement.
- Filtering health programmes into the brand image for potential recruits and customers.
- Improving levels of employee engagement by encouraging healthier lifestyles.
- Reflecting a healthy working environment through reduced employee turnover.
"We want to make the business case that investing in those elements that drive your people engagement and well-being is also going to help drive your business and the bottom line. If you don't do this, you're missing a business opportunity," says Mr Gourlay.
Standard Life, another member of the group, believes it has lifted productivity 25 per cent in the past four years by promoting healthy working practices. So what kind of things are going to make a difference? Mr Gourlay points to what he calls "simple pragmatic things", such as showers, clothing lockers, more spaces for bicycles, fruit in the office and cutting out stodgy food in staff canteens.
I admire the aims of the campaign, which appears to have secured the support of the Department of Health, but I don't think companies should lean too heavily on government support. Instead, they should listen more to their employees because that's where some of the best health initiatives come from. The extent to which companies think health is a government issue was revealed in a recent Norwich Union Healthcare report. It found that while two-thirds of the businesses surveyed believed employee health had a direct impact on productivity, a third wanted government incentives to invest more in staff well-being.
A quarter of the companies said they didn't know where to get employee health information. That figure rose to nearer to half of small businesses. I'm suspicious of that last finding. I think the real issue is that many businesses don't want to look for information. Neither do they want to invest much in well-being if they see no financial benefit.
For myself, the equation is simple. If I don't stay healthy, I can't work and if I don't work, I don't earn. So it's worth the investment in time and money I spend each week in the gym. But gym time can rarely be taken during the working day by those who are employed. Most employees have to run in their lunch breaks or exercise as part of their commute. Companies such as BT have taken the health information route, creating advice packs and diet and exercise programmes for employees. But it is still the case in most companies that health is for the individual.
The move towards measuring and reporting is a significant development, not least because some of these measures would have surfaced in the proposed Operating and Financial Reviews for public companies that were scrapped about two years ago before they could become part of the annual reporting cycle. It is ironic that various human resources measures, such as absence monitoring, engagement scores and employee turnover may resurface as a result of the new campaign.
Mervyn Davies, chairman of Standard Chartered Bank, said at the launch of an HR report in the City last week that he regarded employee well-being as one of the two most pressing issues in the workplace, the other being environmental concerns among employees.
The report*, published by Oakleaf HR Search and Selection, lamented a dearth of good quality HR professionals in City institutions. Many of the HR managers questioned blamed working conditions, saying too many staff were leaving to seek more balanced lifestyles.
Another issue is HR people's lack of influence in the City. The best way to improve this, says Mr Davies, is to provide solid data. "If you can't convince the management you have good data about employees, you can't get on their page. "So, as an industry, HR is going to have to have to deal in data, otherwise its power is going to weaken."
The BITC campaign, therefore, should be viewed as an open door for those in HR who believe that linking management responses to sound employee measures is vital for increasing productivity. A recent study** by Adecco Institute, the research arm of the staffing company, looking at the potential for employers across Europe to confront demographic change, found that health management was "an area ripe for improvement".
Three-quarters of European companies were offering medical check-ups, but only one in 10 gave dietary advice or provided relaxation programmes. "Long-term health options such as sports facilities, back strain reduction and healthy catering remain the exception," said the report.
Before we get too excited, we should remember that many of the large companies turning anew to employee health are the very same businesses that were closing their sports and social clubs and selling off their sports fields a few years ago. Such is the fickleness of enlightenment.
*The report, Talent Crunch in City HR, can be viewed at: www.oakleafpartnership.com**http://www.adeccoinstitute.com/research2007.htm www.richarddonkin.com http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2e59f772-daa0-11dc-9bb9-0000779fd2ac.html