Mental illness has become the number one threat to the health of the UK workforce, bosses at large and medium-sized British firms have claimed.
According to a survey commissioned by healthcare provider Axa PPP, the biggest threat to the health of the UK workforce is no longer back injury, obesity or high blood pressure, but mental illness.
The poll of more than 1,000 firms - which each have 50 or more employees - found 51 per cent of senior executives believed mental health represented the biggest challenge to employee health over the next five years.
Obesity/high body mass index came in second, at 44 per cent, while high blood pressure was third, at 30 per cent.
Chris Horlick, distribution director for Axa PPP healthcare, said this could have a detrimental effect on profitability unless companies get to grips with employee healthcare schemes.
Employee wellbeing is one factor employers can do something about – and well worth doing Chris HorlickHe commented: “While it’s good Britain has weathered the economic downturn with relatively few job losses, productivity levels remain low compared with those of our G7 counterparts.
“Although various factors are thought to underpin this such as the relatively poor educational skills levels in the British workforce and transport infrastructure issues, employee wellbeing is one factor employers can do something about.
“It is well worth doing, as employees who are mentally and physically well will have the resilience to drive better business performance.”
Mr Horlick said to achieve this, it was important for employers to consider their workforce as a whole and introduce health and wellbeing strategies that also tackle any specific health needs.
He added: “It’s essential to provide solutions that support healthy, active lives and, for employees who should become ill or injured, provide early access to investigation and treatment for an early recovery and return to work.”
| Other findings: |
60 per cent of respondents believe the health of the UK’s workforce will improve in the next five years despite these threats. 78 per cent of managers acknowledge they have some responsibility for their employees’ health. 74 per cent currently work for businesses which have an employee health and wellbeing strategy in place while, of those who don’t have one, 58 per cent are planning to introduce a health and wellbeing strategy within the next few years. |
Axa PPP’s research also highlighted the role of technology in driving employee wellbeing, with 67 per cent of respondents believing it will play an increasingly important part in their organisation’s health and wellbeing strategy over the next five years.
Earlier this month (August 2016), Andy Couchman, co-founder of the Protection Review, called on the industry to work with employers to make sure people understood what their policies covered.
He told FTAdviser: “A big issue for many employers is they provide a range of services but employees simply forget or aren’t aware they have them.
“I’d like to see all employees get not just an annual statement of their benefits from their employer but also the equivalent on their individual policies - and in a clear and simple way.
“Getting help with stress is a good example - most employee assistance programmes will have such a service but so too do many individual life and health insurance products now, and this same ‘non-awareness’ issue arises there too.”
He was responding to concerns raised by Canada Life Group Insurance, which in July revealed more than 25 per cent of all calls made to its employee assistance programme (EAP) from January to May 2016 had been for mental health problems.
