The Importance of Corporate Healthcare

Hiring employees is a long process, and from the initial advert posting to the signing of contracts you may end up spending a lot of money on recruitment fees, interviews, not to mention the training costs once they’re hired. This means you want to be hiring employees that are suitable for the job, enthusiastic about the company, and want to stick around, but that’s a no brainer, isn’t it?

When it comes to enticing such sought after employees, the well-known job search site Monster says a Healthcare plan comes in right at the top for the most important job compensation and benefit. So, if this isn’t part of your package then chances are you aren’t getting the best of the best.

Not only do employees appreciate private healthcare cover for themselves, but if you expand this to their family members not only will you have a more diverse group of people to ensure potentially lowering your costs but you’re also likely to improve employee retention.

Sick leave costs UK employers £29bn a year, that’s an extortionate amount of money that smaller companies simply can’t afford. They need to keep their employees healthy to keep business running smoothly and there are a number of ways this can be done.

Promoting a healthier lifestyle

How many of your employees work through their lunch break, eating at their desks without leaving their chair? According to Business Insider, not moving from your desk all day is actually a killer. They list reasons including how sitting all day has negative effects on the organs; to the massive drop in productivity from being away from nature and how disgusting your work station becomes in terms of nasty bacteria. As a company, you can make it easier by banning eating at desks, providing areas for lunch and even going as far as having showers plumbed in so that people can exercise in their lunch break if they choose to.

Providing private healthcare

Private healthcare provides a lot of benefits including maternity cover, home nursing, cancer treatment and medical care abroad meaning if your employee has an accident, or suddenly falls ill, they can skip the waiting lists and get fast, productive, private healthcare.

As a company, not only will you be taking the best care of your employees in terms of their health, but you will also be able to get them back at work in a shorter space of time so that their illness doesn’t impact their salary too much. Financial wellness and emotional wellness are one and the same, so by taking good care of employees and their families with a corporate healthcare, so that they can focus on their job, is extremely important to the smooth running of your company.

Wellbeing programme

Luxury supermarket company M&S introduced a wellbeing programme in 2013 and have seen staff turnover rates drop, sick leave figures fall and even a reduction in referrals. An outstanding figure is just how many employees got involved in the weight-loss challenge. Across the 1,088 employees who joined, 4 metric tonnes of weight was lost while increasing staff engagement. After just a month of the wellbeing programme introduction, sickness absence fell by 7%.

Here at General & Medical as part of our policies we offer free Health and Wellbeing support which you can encourage your employees to use as part of their corporate health insurance. For instance, if they’re having difficulty losing weight and fighting hunger, they can speak to a nutritionist for some tips. Or, if they are suffering from stress at work, there’s always someone on the other end of the phone to offer advice and support. Alongside this, as a company, you can run your own wellbeing initiative with incentives, fundraising and predominantly a strong focus on fitness and wellbeing.

If you’re still not convinced that you should care about your employee’s health and wellbeing, we can only say that the proof is in the pudding. A happy and healthy individual produces a productive, enthusiastic and driven employee, and it’s up to you to look after their health, your company depends on it.