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Wellness: Well at work
Absenteeism and presenteeism is taking a huge economic toll, with musculoskeletal problems and poor mental health the biggest issues. Can workplace wellness make a difference? Kath Hudson investigates
According to Statista, 2.8 million people in the UK were not working due to long-term sickness in November 2023. This is a considerable increase since 2019, when 1.97 million were economically inactive for this reason.
The Health Foundation has calculated that worsening working-age health since early 2020 is adding £16bn to annual borrowing through higher welfare spending and foregone tax receipts.
Research by Vitality has shown that presenteeism – the term for working while ill with an impaired performance – has also increased and is strongly related to non-communicable diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease and kidney disease. Much of this ill-health is attributable to poor lifestyle behaviours, including inactivity and poor diets.
As health risks are interrelated and individuals who are risk of physical inactivity and poor diets are more likely to be at risk for chronic conditions as well, a large proportion of total work impairment is concentrated within a small segment of the population.
With the UK the only G7 economy yet to return to pre-pandemic levels, could workplace wellness help solve this problem? We ask the experts...
The rise of muscloskeletal and lifestyle-related disease and mental wellbeing challenges pose a threat to an already stagnant workforce. Although there are bigger policy plays around public health, the health and fitness industry has an opportunity to play a significant role in workforce wellbeing.
I believe the whole longitudinal health market is the responsibility of the health and fitness industry – a responsibility we’ve never taken on with much success. Living/working better is a day-to-day mechanism and presents an enormous opportunity for the sector to support both individuals and whole communities to be active and positive for their whole life.
Ironically the majority of operators simply don’t work a values-based model and certainly don’t take the mantle on.
Ultimately, operators should be the flag-bearers of prevention, but we’re so far away from this. Weaknesses include lack of collaboration, lack of focus on meaningful health changes in the communities we work with, lack of education and training for our workforce in understanding longitudinal health and our role in health care.
There are some incredible operators from large through to boutique, but there isn’t a common values-based mission for the industry and until there is, the democratising of basic health and fitness knowledge, empowerment and support will not exist.
The medical community is crying out for support in this area. They want to be able to de-medicalise patients that simply shouldn’t be patients and also help communities de-risk and health and fitness operators should be playing a major role in supporting the NHS and thereby the health of he nation.
I’m hopeful policy makers will come together to provide guidance relating to models of care that can help operators and the industry as a whole fill the void that currently exists.
The pandemic disrupted our interaction with healthcare. Routine check-ups, chronic disease management and mental health support were neglected and as a result, we’re seeing people developing long-term health concerns that are preventing them from working.
There are a number of ways we can work together to change the narrative. It starts with refocusing our understanding of workplace benefits from reactive to proactive. Many Gympass clients are acknowledging the need to put the emphasis on keeping staff healthier and active before a crisis occurs.
The health of our nation’s workforce could be improved with a few interventions: better education around symptoms, destigmatisation of mental ill health and signposting ways to get help. Supporting people to become active by removing barriers and building a culture of wellness within the workplace would empower people to prioritise their health and ensure they seek help before they reach crisis point.
There are two routes gym operators can take to support people. Firstly, by promoting preventative health, including the provision of options that target the needs, and budgets, of as many people as possible.
Secondly, recognising the holistic wellbeing of an individual and providing as much information as possible to empower them to make informed choices about their health, for example with packages that explore topics such as nutrition, stress management, sleep hygiene and injury prevention.
By supporting people holistically, and providing preventative care we can keep people healthy and in work.
Many risk factors of ill health are socially patterned and have multiple causes, such as inequalities in income, education, access to green spaces, healthy food and clean air. Although I don’t have the expertise to propose solutions to the big issues, I believe the fitness sector is in a prime position to deliver the message that prevention is always better than cure. This may be something that’s acknowledged in the sector, but there’s more we can do to deliver.
Operators are already playing an important role within the community and continued training to improve knowledge is critical, as delivering improved outcomes fosters loyalty and trust in the sector. We also see consumer demand changing and health and fitness operators must continually innovate to align with this.
I’m pleased to see many introducing mindfulness classes, as work-related stress and burnout are increasingly common reasons for employee absences. According to People Management one in five workers reported taking time off in the last year because of poor mental health caused by pressure at work, however, mindfulness classes can help build resilience to counter this.
Operators could reach out to local businesses, inviting them to trial meditation, relaxation or focused breathwork classes, or even deliver a workshop on the importance and benefits of mindfulness and self-care.
Working with local doctors’ surgeries to maximise GP referral schemes is an effective way of facilitating quicker recovery for people with an existing health condition and preventing these from worsening. UK Active has reported that 21 per cent of people with an existing health condition would rather receive support for their condition in a gym or leisure centre than a hospital setting.
Each year, we deliver more than half a million health club memberships to our network of fitness partners. Although there’s still work to do, by encouraging employees to exercise regularly, membership by membership, we’re contributing to the wellbeing of the working population.
Organisations are facing a range of social and environmental shifts that are far beyond the pace of their business development. An employee might be citing burnout when they’re working the same hours they worked 20 years ago, but back then they didn’t go home to global 24-hour news cycles; 1,000 lives better than theirs on Instagram, ultra-processed food and perpetual blue light.
There’s a huge opportunity for the health and fitness sector to make a compelling commercial case to the corporate sector. Behaviour change is the only meaningful way to influence health markers and productivity and no other profession can deliver habitual change across movement, nutrition and sleep like the health and fitness profession.
An estimated £4.17 billion is lost in the UK each year as a result of absenteeism and that’s not taking into account presenteeism. Looking at the Health and Safety at Work 2022 statistics, 51 per cent of new or long-term sickness is due to stress, anxiety or depression; 27 per cent is caused by musculoskeletal problems and the remaining 22 per cent comprise a multitude of conditions where lifestyle may play a role in preventing return to work.
Improving cardiovascular fitness, movement quality and muscle mass would immediately make an impact on the health of the workforce. We have incredible data around the power of exercise to be more effective than antidepressants at a certain level and musculoskeletal problems are largely a disease of being sedentary.
Organisations are spending huge amounts of money on return-to-work schemes, when they would be better off investing in maintaining the health of their workforce as part of their core offering.
Some organisations have taken it upon themselves to do health checks for their people – such as blood pressure monitoring – to see if they have specific health issues, rather than creating an overall wellness environment and using a preventative approach to ensure they have the best opportunity to be healthy. This is where the fitness industry can play a significant role.
The core skills are already in place in the sector to partner with corporates and improve the health of the workforce, but there are a few challenges. The word fitness is one: we need to use the term wellbeing and recognise that outside the gym environment, body aesthetics are less important. There is also the challenge of speaking to those who are inactive because they feel excluded from exercise because of school sport. Much bigger traction will come if we talk about movement beyond the concept of fitness; nutrition, but not sports nutrition, as well as sleep and stress.
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