Is health care a business priority for business leaders? Do they believe it can have a measurable impact on their bottom line?

I recently posed a question to about 150 people on LinkedIn. The question was:

Is health care a business priority for business leaders? Do they believe it can have a measurable impact on their bottom line?

In my 15 years of work in Employee Health & Benefits, I have often wondered whether business leaders view employee health care as an important business priority. My experience says that health and wellbeing of employees is usually a low business priority if at all. Having said that, do employers recognize that a clear health strategy for the management of employee health and wellbeing can have a significant positive impact on the corporate bottom line and simultaneously improve the Company's efforts in talent acquisition and retention?

Location specific: India

The question was well received by many and here is a summary of the responses I received from people I knew well:

Senior Manager - Health & Safety, Multinational - "Theoretically, yes. Practically, no.
Managements generally don't consider employee health as within their sphere of influence."

Senior Sourcing Leader - Procurement, Multinational - "I definetely feel & believe that employee health care definiteley has an impact on the productivity of employees & thereby the organisation. Hence, this will obviously have an impact on the bottomline of the organisation.

However, as you have rightly observed, I am not sure if all employers are giving the right level of priority to ensure good health care of the organisations. Most organisations may feel they are doing the right stuff in having a good medical insurance policy or a GTL or a personal accident policy in place. I feel there is lot more to do..."

CEO, Insurance Broker - "In my experience Health care is seen as a necessary evil and a cost. Many young employees also probably do not see value in say the company taking care of health, giving free gym memberships, asking for regular check ups, providing dental care etc. Young execs are reluctant to go for annual check ups which are free. To create a culture of good health care and make employees see value in what the company is offering is tough. It is a long road with commitment from management by demonstrating the intent and also the benefits to the organization and the employee."

Healthcare Consultant to BPO - "It really depends where you work....
In hospitals that I have worked in out side the country, they are pretty strict when it comes to employee health and safety, they apparently have learnt it the hard way such as being slapped with Law suits if a nurse gets a bacd back due to inappropriate lifting techniques that have been used rather that the correct technique that should have been used.....Needle stick injuries is another case that comes to mind as well. Infact I feel that outside India they are very well aware of it to the extent that even for back office staff working in a hospital using VDU`s (Visual Display Units - ie computer monitors etc) it is compulsry to have eye checks, incase it is found that their eye sight has deteriorated over time - then its the hospitals responsibility to foot the bill for a new pair of spectacles........
Such things are common abroad but there is no such policy in India, when it comes to employee health & safety......."

Former Senior Leader at Managed Care Company in the US - "This is a great question. I've been both on the employer side of this equation, as well as the insurance side. My experience is that some employers 'get it" and many do not. I think the trend is to be more aggressive about trying to improve health trends, but ironically, economic conditions can slow those efforts at a time when companies should be trying to accelerate improvements.

Those who do understand the potential value of a healthier employee base are generally the more progressive employers. They quantify results of wellness programs and closely track their health care expenditures overall. They are not afraid to try new programs to improve corporate results through a healthier employee base.

The results can be impressive. Lower absenteeism and presenteeism, lower disability costs, lower employee turnover, and most importantly these days, lower overall health care and benefit expenditures, can make a material impact on the bottom line."

Founder & CEO, Risk Consulting Organization - "Business leaders view healthcare as an absolute imperative to hire and retain manpower.
They have not yet thought in terms of prioritising workplace healthcare and correlating it to ultimate business and financial performance. A simple example can be found in workplace hygiene and maintenance.Only corporate offices have now some semblance of toilet hygiene. If one goes down to remote locations, there is no priority.
An extreme view to adopt will be that businesses in India still work the body shop concept while employing and utilizing manpower.
Investment plans do not accord priority for workplace hygiene and healthcare and usually only residual funds, if any are deployed for such purposes."

Benefits Consultant, Multinational Benefits & Broking - "Considering healthcare and its insurance costs increasing y-o-y, a well informed Wellness Program being a part of a Long Term Healthcare Strategy alone can help corporate contain the cost.

I feel business leaders realize there is an impact to the bottom line on account of absenteeism and increasing healthcare cost. However for any action thereon, the market needs to develop effective tools to evaluate the quantum of loss on account of absenteeism, suggest means of control through a health care strategy and measurement of productivity improvements from such healthcare strategy.

Many MNCs are driving Wellness programs for employee as goodwill and welfare measure. We have also seen increasing number of 25+ age Ees valuing fitness program, corporate yoga, etc. to manage their stress and importance.

To see much clearer and informed pattern of Wellness Programs towards improving productivity once these evaluation tools are made available."

Senior Independent Medical Practitioner - "You are right in saying that Health and wellbeeing of employee is low priority for company.
Young people who are employed are generally healthy and will remain healthy for 10-20 years. And I don't think corporates do long term thinking about employees health.
Employee's health is very low on priority."

CEO, Financial Services & Distribution - "Lets see how companies tend to evaluate issues. They may do an employee survey. They have data from their appraisals. This is collated and then the HR dept puts up the reccomended interventions.

Where does Health figure in this. I guess it is also an issue of not getting data.

A Solution : if the insurance company who has the data of the company's employees, can mine the data and pick out the trend of deseases that are progressing in the company, then you can present it to the company and give them a solution.

Is there a solution like this already. Are we using this in India."

Head - Strategic Clinical Projects, Hospital Company - "The Answer to your question is Yes and No.

Yes, if we talk about bigger companies (Fortune 500) in developed world.

However the smaller organizations both in developing as well as developed world countries are relatively insenstive issues pertaining to well being and health of employees.

This may be attributed many factors like:

70% - 80% employers are from unorganized sector with small entities which employ less than 2000 employees.

e.g. Take exapmle of a small sized manfacturing unit ( about 2000 employees). Such units have more workers in category of semiskilled or unskilled labor which can be easily replaced.

Most of unorganized sector is still lead by family heads rather than professional managers who seldon have any sentivity to such issues and see this as extra burden on bottom line.

Even some professional managers are insenstive to these issues as they may lack vision, don't have resources or find it operatiionally difficult to make employee well being a top priority."

Senior Technology Professional & Entrepreneur - "In theory healthcare is a business priority for business leaders - however that usually means providing health insurance coverage and an annual healthcheckup.

From personal experience a healthy employee does always deliver more"

CEO, Shared Services Organization - "I agree with your views that health and well being of employees does not really figure as a business priority, although the impact value of ill health of key employees could be very significant !!"

Head of Strategy, Healthcare & Pharma Multinational - "Healthcare and well being is not a business priority for the business leaders. In fact working inspite of health probelms is chivalry and gets rewarded. Jack Welch is an example...The metrics of health and profitablity are not established.

For employers in India (Indian/MNC), it's not important. With regards to talent acquisition and retention : it is not a major issue today. Avg age of employees in most organisation is <>

Manager Marketing & Communications, IT Company - "With the increasing stress and cut throat competition in market definitely the health care is one of the biggest issues with the management in every organization. With long working hours and lots of intake of tea, coffee and fast food, usually people on all the level miss their daily walks and workouts which are as important as a full night sleep. The flames of which reach to their work place also. A few organizations understand it and have started with their own health centers and play rooms and hygienic work environment which are definitely appreciable. But still there is a long way for us to reach that stage where every vertical of industry can claim being conscious about the health of employees. Even the giant business units are not very hygiene conscious at times. This is one of the reasons for employee turnover. Definitely a clear health strategy can add to the fair image of any organization and will help to retain the most dynamic and powerful resources, its employees."

VP and Head of Insurance Vertical, IT Company - "You have said what has been close to my heart. In terms of the kind of HR principles that should be - I think health strategy (in addition to a score of other similar employee centric concerns) is a must for employers. But unless the market pushes them to it, its not going to happen. Also the necessary systems and infra as well as availability of solution providers is a must to make this happen. Employees also need to look at this as a differentiator.

To answer your question, I recognise the importance of such a strategy, but I agree that it is not getting its due attention and it will be some years before we see it in action. "

I thought the message was loud and clear, Business Leaders DO NOT see Health Care as a priority on their Corporate Agenda. Clearly, this is going to need a lot of work from everyone who believes it should be.