by Greig Rightford, Strategy & Development, HealthFit Collective.
These three little pigs are not the fairy tale type; they are uglier, bigger, more expensive than anything in a picture book - and far more damaging to staff culture, engagement and productivity.
We live in a world that is making it increasingly more difficult to live - not like pigs - but like how healthy humans should live. For humans to be healthy and productive (thinking of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, we need social connectivity, creativity, vitality and resilience. Instead, today’s world creates constraints through heavy workloads, pressured deadlines, a higher cost of living, information overload along with a sedentary lifestyle to ensure we don’t recover for the next period of stress.
A growing number of people are becoming unable to cope with these rising stress levels and research reflects this - and it’s affecting our businesses.
Pig # 1: Stress.
We are seeing an increase in psychological stress in the modern work environment. According to the recent 'Wellness in the Workplace' survey report from Southern Cross & Business NZ, stress has increased by 22.9% across all businesses in only two years. That means that people are more than one fifth more stressed than where they were two years ago.
What are the implications of this for the future? What will things look like in five years? Or ten years?
Our inability to deal with stress means that the whole workforce is slowly becoming less resilient. What happens when our resilience drops? We are even less likely to cope with stress.
Pig # 2: Absenteeism.
Stress is strongly correlated to absenteeism. HealthFit works alongside organisations that use absenteeism (days off work) as a valuable Key Performance Indicator in an organisation’s health and safety plan. The numbers are alarming; US employers estimated absenteeism-related expenses of US$74 billion annually - including overtime and overstaffing to cover for this. Even in New Zealand a recent study confirms that absenteeism costs employers $2 billion annually.
Absenteeism today is a serious problem.
Pig # 3: Presenteeism.
While the first two pigs have obvious impacts, the third pig is subtle, insidious. In a nutshell, presenteeism alludes to the fact that people work in an unhealthy state of being. Presenteeism has been studied more recently, and the numbers are more alarming. In the same New Zealand study mentioned above, two thirds of the total cost can be directly attributed to presenteeism.
The current cost per individual is estimated at $1500/person. That means the cost of presenteeism is $1000 per year while absenteeism costs $500 annually Southern Cross Medical Society and Statistics NZ.
Presenteeism is hard to measure - but the above study suggests a rule of thumb could perhaps be “take your annual sick leave figure, and double it”.
Cause & effect.
How do we tackle these symptoms?
While there is no easy answer, extensive research from the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom all substantiate that workplaces need to create health strategies that involve: better policy, measuring overall physical health, and utilising internal relationships to create lasting impact.
It makes sense, if we disregard our employee’s environment, then their wellbeing will respond accordingly. It is easy to make the connection between people who have poor health, and those workplaces that experience a decrease in work performance. When life is out of balance - there are no good consequences.
At HealthFit, we have been helping businesses tackle these three (big) little pigs for years, and our strategy each time is not the same. Each workplace deals with challenges that relate to its industry (and therefore its negative environmental influences).
Consulting with providers like us can change the narrative for an organisation - it is more effective for experts to help from the sidelines because they have perspective on the problem, there is no confirmation bias, and drawing on knowledge from previous interactions is invaluable.
Concerned about your workplace? Ask for a call HERE.