Willis Towers Watson launches employee wellbeing indicator
Employers have been offered the chance to gain insights into the effectiveness of their employee health and wellbeing programmes through a new index launched by global advisory, broking and solutions company Willis Towers Watson.
While companies are investing heavily in wellbeing in their workplaces, employee engagement with these programmes remains low, according to the company. Lesley Brown, Asia Pacific Leader, Employee Surveys and Insights at Willis Towers Watson, said: “We saw the need for a tool that would help companies build employee wellbeing and reduce risk, as well as measure and benchmark improvements in workforce productivity. We have developed our Employee Wellbeing Indicator to support this.”
The tool measures the current wellbeing of employees in physical, psychological, social and financial terms and identifies the areas of concern that will affect productivity.
The Global Benefits Attitudes Study, released earlier this year, shows that 50 per cent of Australian employees with current financial concerns indicated that their worries keep them from doing their best at work. Globally, one in four employees have health issues, are worried about their finances, plan to work into their 70s and are disengaged.
A further Willis Towers Watson survey, the Asia-Pacific Benefits Trends report, revealed that employees were expecting further benefits from their organisations in the health and wellness space. It found that 74 per cent of employers were considering behavioural or emotional health management programmes, while 55 per cent were looking at activity-based wellbeing programmes and 50 per cent of employers identified lifestyle risk management as their key area of investment. The missing link was for employers to gauge the efficacy and return on investment of such programmes.
The Employee Wellbeing Indicator is designed to help companies identify areas of strength and high performance, pinpoint where they need to focus to build employee wellbeing, productivity and overall business performance and track progress over time.
Brown added: “We are looking to go beyond traditional health programmes and employee engagement surveys. This is an integrated solution that uses consumer-grade software, underpinned by robust research methodologies. Individual company results will also be benchmarked against Australia’s most comprehensive national norm.”