Issues

Improving employee health

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Minister for Health, Leo Varadkar, recently launched the Healthy Workplace initiative to improve the health of public servants. But what does that mean? We asked Patricia Hyland, Director of Sales in Ireland’s leading health and wellness provider, Laya Healthcare.

Can you introduce us to laya healthcare?

Laya healthcare is Ireland’s second largest health insurer with over half a million members. Most people do not realise that we have over 18 years’ experience in the healthcare market in Ireland, having been first established in 1997. Health & Wellness by laya healthcare is focused on using a combination of cardiac & biometric screening, occupational health, EAP and wellness programmes to change the daily behavioural habits of employees working closely with employers of all sizes and industries.

What is health and wellness?

Can I just start by saying what it is not? It is not a health fair, or a seminar or two on some health topic. Studies have shown that these in isolation are largely ineffective. What it is, is a series of connected events and programmes chosen and tailored to client’s needs to help employees improve their mental and physical health.

Why is employee health and wellness so important?

There is more and more research showing that employees who are physically, emotionally and mentally healthy are on average much happier, more productive, have more energy and are more engaged. Our research shows that improving employee health and wellness helps to reduce employee stress levels, absenteeism and staff turnover. It also helps improve the physical and mental health of our clients’ employees as well as morale, team spirit, engagement, motivation, productivity, performance and our clients’ corporate image and brand.

Changing behaviour is pretty difficult. How do you do it?

We have a wide range of weight loss, nutrition and fitness programmes but we all know that healthy living is a way of life, not just an isolated exercise or weight loss programme. I would like to think there is no one better at engaging employees and motivating them to keep going to the finish, and most importantly to maintain those healthy habits long after the programme has ended. Our Health & Wellness team provide highly trained experts across a wide range of disciplines. Take running for example. Our running programmes have been designed by an Irish Olympian and our Running Coaches are specifically trained in motivation skills, along with specific techniques to help participants avoid unnecessary injuries. We even have a communications team who are focused on making sure we get great sign up for each particular event or activity. Our message is always to encourage people to keep going with new habits long after an individual programme has finished.

We work with some well know experts in the health and wellness field such as former Munster and Ireland rugby star Alan Quinlan to make sure only the best advice and programmes are delivered by our team.

Obviously, if you want to maximise the health and wellbeing of your workforce, you cannot stop at the exit door of your office. Research shows that we live in a country where 46 per cent of people are unhappy with work life balance [Viking SME Survey 2014]. Whether they are first time parents or just looking for some financial advice, laya healthcare’s Health & Wellness team offer a rich array of consultations, handouts, talks and webinars to answer a diverse set of needs.

Is mental health a part of a health and wellness programme?

Absolutely. Mental Health is critical to the success of any health and wellness programme. People often concentrate too much on the physical side and neglect the mental health aspect in this area. We employ a proactive – not just reactive – approach to mental health in the workplace called Think Well. Most people find the terminologies mental health, mental iIllness, mental difficulties, mental fitness, emotional wellbeing confusing and struggle to take the first step in creating a mentally healthy workplace culture. This is where we can help as our team of organisational psychologists, clinical psychologists, counselling psychologists and behavioural psychologists are ready to assist with the most up to date approaches. Our approach is much more than seminars, webinars and the occasional workshop; it’s designed for managers and employees alike. Together, we can create the culture for employees to help eradicate stigma and get involved in activities focused on improving mental health at work.

Do health and wellness programmes improve employee health?

Targeted health and wellness can significantly, and measurably, improve employee health and we are seeing that time and time again in our screening data. Everyone knows that prevention costs less than treatment. What we are trying to do is link up all the data in a connected health model so that we continue to measure the impact of our health and wellness programmes.

OK, can you give our readers some insight about how to get started with a health and wellness programme?

Our experience delivering health and wellness programmes across a wide spectrum of companies means we know, for it to be successful, it needs to be tailored to each client’s needs. Our health and wellness team work with all of our clients to introduce a well-balanced and highly engaging employee health and wellness programme, that has been designed not just to the strategic priorities of our clients but also to the key physical and mental health priorities of our clients but also to the key ities of individual employees themselves.

With our clients spread across private and public sectors, we know that every company has its own unique differences; from organisational type and size, facilities, organisational culture and employee demographic. To understand our clients, first of all we analyse and score every bit of health and wellness data available to us including health screening data, absenteeism data, claims data and of course employee survey data. We give each of our client organisations a HealthScore and we rank this HealthScore to show our clients how they compare to national norms.

We will then map out the next steps for you in implementing the best possible health and wellness programme. Our team will also help put the required structure in place, such as internal champions and a complementary communications plan making it easy to implement.

Customisation is important but we need to go one step further, as to achieve the employee ‘buy-in’ there needs to be a recognition in the design process that different types of employees need different types of Health & Wellness programmes. Our health and wellness team achieve personalisation in three ways. First, our clinical team use the screening results for referrals to the appropriate health and wellness programmes. Then, we collaborate and work together to improve individual employee health, encourage employee wellness, and vastly reduce the impact to your team from preventable lifestyle disease. Finally, using our innovative online “I Commit” programme, we encourage and then support employees in their own commitments to better health.

Our ‘I Commit’ programme is hugely well received as it encourages employees to commit to a healthier lifestyle; be it physically, mentally or emotionally and we then provide them with the correct tools, support, resources, and information to achieve their personal goals. We provide e-books, tips sheets, virtual programmes, monthly emails, monthly webinars, google hangouts and apps to support their journey, along with social forums for interaction with other employees with the same resolution to interact, to share frustrations and successes, develop a comradery and a sense of encouragement and support.

Does health and wellness help with lifestyle diseases?

Yes, the big health problem in Ireland is reacting to preventable chronic illness. One of the areas where we have spent most time in laya healthcare is in designing our revolutionary model of healthcare management in onsite corporate health hubs to help improve employee health, encourage employee wellness, and vastly reduce the impact to the business from preventable lifestyle disease.

Everyone fluctuates somewhere on the health spectrum between the well and the chronically sick. In between exists a group of highly impactable individuals whose health trajectory can be corrected if they are introduced to the he right education and lifestyle tools at the right time. Our medical team can track and analyse absenteeism and health claims, identifying high-risk and highly impactable groups — those who would benefit most from healthcare intervention. We will then engage those employees to help move them toward optimal health.

Should we use technology in health and wellness?

Some companies do, some don’t. Traditional means of providing health and wellness services can sometimes have a limited reach. So often we look to widen our reach through online portals, apps and activity trackers to give all employees within an organisation access to the latest services. We offer apps which will help support your organisations’ employees to improve engagement, while boosting staff motivation with their health and wellbeing initiatives. We believe that gamification will feature heavily in tomorrow’s health and wellness offering. Rewards based programmes have value but we think that these, in conjunction with gamification and the higher levels of engagement they bring, will be key drivers of long term change.

What are the main things you would recommend for a health and wellness programme to be a success?

Hire the experts! Seriously, whether it is us or someone else, I believe that to successfully engage employees and to make a difference to the health of your company, there needs to be expertise which most companies do not have in-house. After that, we have a few recommendations. Firstly, it sounds obvious, but leadership participation makes an incredible difference as it signals permission to participate; it generates strong attention; and it gently establishes a level of expectation within an organisation. Secondly, challenges really work as every behavioural science student knows, most of us are competitive. Next, I would say communication is really important. Our Comms team are experts here and even provide a comprehensive Communications Toolkit for all clients. Finally, it’s well documented that onsite health and wellness champions who are members of our client’s team are an essential ingredient in successful workplace health and wellness initiatives.

Insurance provided by Elips Insurance Ltd trading as Laya Healthcare. Laya Healthcare Ltd, trading as Laya Healthcare is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland.

Contact:

Laya Healthcare

Tel: 00 353 (21) 202 2000

1890 907 088

Email: h&w@layahealthcare.ie

Web: www.layawellness.ie

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