Preventative healthcare: the financial benefits of protecting your people first
What do you do when an employee goes off sick? You say get well soon, you shuffle work around, and the team pulls together. But what if their problem is something major, and that sick leave turns into weeks or even months?
That’s difficult enough at the best of times. But in today’s cost of living crisis, the stress of making ends meet is putting more and more people off sick. The more people are absent, the more businesses struggle to operate at their best. And the more the company struggles, the more employees will worry about whether their salary is safe. Businesses need to intervene to halt this cycle, or better still reverse it.
The sooner you get involved, the more you can help
If you’re a large organisation, you might be familiar with preventative healthcare. But if you’re a small or a new business, the idea of providing preventative healthcare might seem out of your remit. Does that mean everyone needs to become a first aider? Do you need an office nurse? A member of the St John Ambulance Brigade on standby in case of emergencies?
You don’t need to be administering healthcare yourself. But what you do need to think about is early intervention. With any illness, the longer you leave it before getting treatment, the more painful it will be before it gets resolved. The same logic applies to your team – if you can get them help early on, there’s less chance of them needing sudden leave that hurts your business.
Mental health is an obvious place to start. Currently mental health issues are the second largest claiming point on health-related insurance, and they’re the largest in terms of incidents by a long way. But not every mental health issue has to end in serious illness.
Train up team leaders as mental health first aiders. Signpost employees to benefits like counselling. Commit to regular one-to-one check ins, especially for hybrid teams you aren’t seeing daily. If you help them catch the problem early, you can prevent it spiralling into something much bigger.
It doesn’t just have to be for mental health. Back pain, eyesight, even their financial health – anywhere your employees might be struggling is an opportunity to extend help.
It’s not healthcare if it’s going unused
If you want your preventative healthcare benefits to actually make a difference for your employees, it has to be a couple of things.
The first is easily accessible. We’ve all had experiences before where healthcare benefits promise the world, but actually getting through the door has been the hardest part of using them. The portal’s too much of a labyrinth, there are too many separate websites and passwords – whatever the reason, if employees have to jump through hoops to get their healthcare, they won’t bother with it.
It also has to be relevant to the kind of healthcare your employees will most likely need. You won’t be able to predict exactly what health issues your people will face – that would be another level of preventative care. But you can think about the challenges they come up against in the role and what that means for their health.
For example, if your team spends most of their time sitting in front of computers, reimbursed eye tests could be a perfect fit.
But it pays to think a little outside the box as well. Imagine your office is in a city centre and you know most of your people walk or cycle in to work. Could they benefit from access to discounted physiotherapy or podiatry to make sure the commute isn’t wearing them down?
Drop the ball now and regret it later
The cost of living crisis in the UK isn’t just impacting people’s wallets, it’s impacting their health as well. Financial anxiety is driving up stress-related sick leave. Tighter budgets mean that people aren’t eating properly, or are putting off vital healthcare like eye tests and dental services.
As those health issues mount up, it causes problems for businesses too. A survey by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) found that 66% of managers said the cost of living crisis was damaging their employees’ productivity.
When businesses start cutting costs, it’s often things like healthcare that are first on the chopping block. But a business can’t run if all of its employees are off sick or too stressed to focus on their work. If you drop those early intervention points now to save money, you’ll end up spending more in the long run when your employees have no other option but to go off sick and file an income protection claim.
What’s good for your people is always going to be good for your books. When both you and your employees need every advantage to get through what’s coming, now is the time to double down on investing in healthcare benefits. Because if you axe those services now, you’ll soon realise their value.
If you want to see how Lumina can help you build a benefits package that takes care of your employees, sign up for a demo.
