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UK companies are to be urged by Business in the Community to introduce more healthy-living programmes for their employees as part of their general corporate responsibility efforts.
A new Bitc campaign, the Business Action on Health initiative, will put pressure on company leaders to place workplace health programmes 'higher on the corporate agenda', with an emphasis on the business benefits. Bitc will also work with companies to measure and report their performance on health.
It says such programmes are becoming more important in the UK because almost full employment is reducing the supply of workers and long-term sickness is now a major public health and economic concern, with incapacity benefits estimated to cost the government £13billion (€23.6bn) annually.
The government has signalled that it wants to elevate the importance of health at work, and included a chapter on the subject in its recent health white paper which refers to the importance of 'promoting the work environment as a source of better health'. However, a new Bitc survey on workplace health found that virtually none of the 454 chief executives, finance directors and human resources directors it questioned knew anything about the chapter.
While the survey showed there was some progress being made on introducing health programmes, it concluded that employers tend to focus on 'cure rather than prevention', with around half of respondents offering private healthcare but only one third saying they had any programmes to help employees stay healthy.
Bitc argues there is a strong business case for measures such as free fruit schemes, bicycle purchasing loans, subsidized gym membership and awareness programmes on cancer, diabetes and other health matters.
Earlier this year initial results from a Harvard Medical School study of 2300 Unilever employees showed that, when measured against a control group, those participating for six months in workplace health schemes experienced an average six-hour reduction in short-term disability over the period, and improved their performance by two per cent.
A new Bitc campaign, the Business Action on Health initiative, will put pressure on company leaders to place workplace health programmes 'higher on the corporate agenda', with an emphasis on the business benefits. Bitc will also work with companies to measure and report their performance on health.
It says such programmes are becoming more important in the UK because almost full employment is reducing the supply of workers and long-term sickness is now a major public health and economic concern, with incapacity benefits estimated to cost the government £13billion (€23.6bn) annually.
The government has signalled that it wants to elevate the importance of health at work, and included a chapter on the subject in its recent health white paper which refers to the importance of 'promoting the work environment as a source of better health'. However, a new Bitc survey on workplace health found that virtually none of the 454 chief executives, finance directors and human resources directors it questioned knew anything about the chapter.
While the survey showed there was some progress being made on introducing health programmes, it concluded that employers tend to focus on 'cure rather than prevention', with around half of respondents offering private healthcare but only one third saying they had any programmes to help employees stay healthy.
Bitc argues there is a strong business case for measures such as free fruit schemes, bicycle purchasing loans, subsidized gym membership and awareness programmes on cancer, diabetes and other health matters.
Earlier this year initial results from a Harvard Medical School study of 2300 Unilever employees showed that, when measured against a control group, those participating for six months in workplace health schemes experienced an average six-hour reduction in short-term disability over the period, and improved their performance by two per cent.
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