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1) Why should companies prioritise workspace health?
The biggest potential benefits for companies investing in employee health comes from enhancing productivity and reducing presenteeism. However, companies struggle to quantify the cost impact. Instead, they focus their investment on reducing direct costs, such as attrition and absenteeism, which are more easily measurable, even though attrition and absenteeism only represent up to a quarter of the opportunity to improve employee’s health.
Investing in employee health can substantially:
2) What is the current state of workforce health?
Health is more than an absence of disease or disability, but when a person has positive state of mental, physical, spiritual, and social functioning. (World Health Organisation (WHO))
From the McKinsey Health Institute of over 30k employees worldwide, 57% reported a good level of holistic health with the following demographics struggling:
3) How can organisations address workforce health?
There are six ‘evergreen’ evidence-based principles for employers seeking to make a positive impact.
Rather than solely addressing the poor health of individual employees, the focus is on developing a healthy workforce. Today, working adults spend roughly 45 years of their lives at work. This underscores the workplace’s potential to profoundly influence health, not just for the benefit of employees, but also for their families and communities in which they live as well as the organisations for which they work.
4) What major factors do organisations need to consider as part of their investment case to improve employee health and wellness?
‘Well-being is the ultimate productivity multiplier. And when companies invest in their people’s well-being, it’s a win-win-creating workplace cultures where individuals can maximise their productivity and creativity, which in turn enables businesses to grow and maximize their community impact.’
5) What is the state of holistic health on an industry-by-industry basis?
Employees showing a higher rate of burnout symptoms and lower rates of holistic health in the following 4 industries:
Source: 2023 McKinsey Health Institute survey
Organisations typically do not see or cannot measure the benefits of their current investments in employee health.
Case Study: Brent Cross Town
Brent Cross Town is a new £8BN, 180-acre mixed-use neighbourhood being built in Northwest London. It’s a public-private partnership between Barnet Council and Related Argent. The development is three times the size of King’s Cross and when complete, will comprise 6,700 new homes, and 3 million sq. ft of office space for 25,000 workers.
What is interesting is Brent Cross Town is the first to develop and use a Flourishing Index, which measures community and individual wellbeing from the outset of the development through to completion. The goal is to take regular snapshots of the community and build a body of data that will help guide decision-making as the development progresses.
The work is led by The University of Manchester and consultancy firm Buro Happold. Their research team designed the index with the local community, through a series of focus group sessions. It is based on the latest science and local communities are a critical stakeholder in the project.
It’s clear from McKinsey’s report that organisations are struggling to quantify employee health and cost impact on productivity. What is clear from Vitality Health’s data is that UK productivity is a problem and it’s getting worse. I’d like the panel to explore the merit of creating a ‘Flourishing Index’ for the workforce. This survey measures employee wellbeing and highlights the need for tailored interventions to address and prevent health challenges and tackle the workspace factors that contribute to them.
Prioritising Health in the Workplace
Thursday 20 February 2025
Piers Nickalls, chair of the NLA Work Expert Panel discusses their first meeting of 2025 and the outcomes to be discussed throughout the year.
June Koh from Cushman & Wakefield presented insights from their most recent ‘C&W Total Workspace Innovation Exchange’. The presentation focused on the implications of key macro drivers, (i.e. demographic shifts, geopolitics, climate risk, and the impact of AI) and how they are shifting business priorities towards investing in employee wellbeing, to improve business productivity and enhance community impact.
During the expert panel meeting, we discussed the following five key questions. I have done some supplemental research and have used the following report to provide supporting data.
June Koh from Cushman & Wakefield presented insights from their most recent ‘C&W Total Workspace Innovation Exchange’. The presentation focused on the implications of key macro drivers, (i.e. demographic shifts, geopolitics, climate risk, and the impact of AI) and how they are shifting business priorities towards investing in employee wellbeing, to improve business productivity and enhance community impact.
During the expert panel meeting, we discussed the following five key questions. I have done some supplemental research and have used the following report to provide supporting data.
- Vitality Health: ‘10 years of Britain’s Healthiest Workplace’
- McKinsey: ‘How employees can improve productivity and change lives’
1) Why should companies prioritise workspace health?
The biggest potential benefits for companies investing in employee health comes from enhancing productivity and reducing presenteeism. However, companies struggle to quantify the cost impact. Instead, they focus their investment on reducing direct costs, such as attrition and absenteeism, which are more easily measurable, even though attrition and absenteeism only represent up to a quarter of the opportunity to improve employee’s health.
Investing in employee health can substantially:
- Increase productivity
- Reduced absenteeism
- Lower healthcare costs
- Heightened employee engagement and retention
- Better placed to adapt to increased regulatory pressures on workspace
- Meet ESG criteria
2) What is the current state of workforce health?
Health is more than an absence of disease or disability, but when a person has positive state of mental, physical, spiritual, and social functioning. (World Health Organisation (WHO))
From the McKinsey Health Institute of over 30k employees worldwide, 57% reported a good level of holistic health with the following demographics struggling:
- Women – 8% more likely to report exhausted symptoms
- LGBTQI+ - 9% less likely to report good holistic health
- Neurodivergent – 24% less likely to report good holistic health and burnout symptoms compared to neurotypical peers
- Younger – 18-28% more likely to report burnout symptoms than the oldest workers
- Lower educated – 20% less likely to report good holistic health. Highlights the critical role of continuous learning and development, adaptability, and self-confidence
- Lower financial status - 27% less likely to report good holistic health when an employee has poor financial stability
- Job type: 45% less likely to report good holistic health with high job insecurity. Leads to mental health issues (depression, anxiety, burnout)
- Job type: 24% of upper management report burnout symptoms and 26% of front-line works
- Caregivers: 17% more likely to report higher burnout symptoms, primarily driven by exhaustion. 10% of employees care for someone with a mental or physical illness in addition to their paid jobs. Caregivers taking care of adults reported higher rates of burnout than looking after children. The burden of care falls disproportionately on women
3) How can organisations address workforce health?
There are six ‘evergreen’ evidence-based principles for employers seeking to make a positive impact.
- Understand the baseline health status of employees – by using health assessments, annual people surveys, focus groups etc. Only 2.2% conduct employee surveys focusing on health and well-being. Novo Nordisk measures employee stress levels using validated screening questions c14% of employees reported stress symptoms. Strong support interventions adopted (i.e. organisational psychologists) reduced reported stress by 20-30%.
- Develop initiatives for a sustainable healthy workforce:
- Pilot interventions to test and learn, track 3-5 metrics to measure success.
- Ensure leadership commitment and sponsorship
- Embed employee health into organizational culture
Rather than solely addressing the poor health of individual employees, the focus is on developing a healthy workforce. Today, working adults spend roughly 45 years of their lives at work. This underscores the workplace’s potential to profoundly influence health, not just for the benefit of employees, but also for their families and communities in which they live as well as the organisations for which they work.
4) What major factors do organisations need to consider as part of their investment case to improve employee health and wellness?
- Direct healthcare costs: a healthier workforce means lower healthcare costs and reduced absenteeism.
- Productivity and presenteeism: growing evidence that adopting employee well-being interventions improves productivity and reduced presenteeism (University of Warwick)
- Talent Management: Research shows that companies which foster a ‘culture of health’ experience employee turnover rates of 11% lower than those that do not (Mercer). Research from Said Business School found that investing in employee health and well-being is especially important for Gen Z and increasingly important for attracting talent.
- Performance: A healthier, happier, and more engaged workforce boosts company performance and resilience (University of Oxford).
- ESG: Investors are increasingly seeing employee health and well-being as an important component of ‘S’.
- Regulation and compliance: Regulatory environments may become more stringent, forcing employees to act.
‘Well-being is the ultimate productivity multiplier. And when companies invest in their people’s well-being, it’s a win-win-creating workplace cultures where individuals can maximise their productivity and creativity, which in turn enables businesses to grow and maximize their community impact.’
5) What is the state of holistic health on an industry-by-industry basis?
Employees showing a higher rate of burnout symptoms and lower rates of holistic health in the following 4 industries:
- Accounting
- Retail
- Shipping/distribution
- Arts/media/entertainment/recreation
- HR
Employees showing a lower rate of burnout symptoms and higher rates of holistic health in the following 4 industries:
- HR
- Admin support services
- Construction
- Education
- Engineering & Architecture
Source: 2023 McKinsey Health Institute survey
Organisations typically do not see or cannot measure the benefits of their current investments in employee health.
Case Study: Brent Cross Town
Brent Cross Town is a new £8BN, 180-acre mixed-use neighbourhood being built in Northwest London. It’s a public-private partnership between Barnet Council and Related Argent. The development is three times the size of King’s Cross and when complete, will comprise 6,700 new homes, and 3 million sq. ft of office space for 25,000 workers.
What is interesting is Brent Cross Town is the first to develop and use a Flourishing Index, which measures community and individual wellbeing from the outset of the development through to completion. The goal is to take regular snapshots of the community and build a body of data that will help guide decision-making as the development progresses.
The work is led by The University of Manchester and consultancy firm Buro Happold. Their research team designed the index with the local community, through a series of focus group sessions. It is based on the latest science and local communities are a critical stakeholder in the project.
It’s clear from McKinsey’s report that organisations are struggling to quantify employee health and cost impact on productivity. What is clear from Vitality Health’s data is that UK productivity is a problem and it’s getting worse. I’d like the panel to explore the merit of creating a ‘Flourishing Index’ for the workforce. This survey measures employee wellbeing and highlights the need for tailored interventions to address and prevent health challenges and tackle the workspace factors that contribute to them.
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