In recent years, particularly over the last decade, multiple authors have researched and reviewed the value of occupational health and this document is a helpful reminder that it’s no longer a case of relying on “trust me I’m a doctor”, there is a clear path that links pro-active and responsive occupational health to improved employee health, improved workforce productivity, enhanced business performance and contribution to a successful economy.
I welcome the Society of Occupational Medicine’s valuable summary detailing the value proposition for occupational health:
SOM, Occupational health: the value proposition
I have still been referring to a document the Society developed with the Faculty of Occupational Medicine probably 20 years or so ago “Managing the Health of Your Business” – which was good common sense but lacked the strong evidence base, this new document summarises well.
In recent years, particularly over the last decade, multiple authors have researched and reviewed the value of occupational health and this document is a helpful reminder that it’s no longer a case of relying on “trust me I’m a doctor”, there is a clear path that links pro-active and responsive occupational health to improved employee health, improved workforce productivity, enhanced business performance and contribution to a successful economy.
The report starts with a business case, it’s interesting that most business managers intuitively recognise the business case for maintaining work equipment or avoiding safety issues, but are often more cynical about the case for investing in employee health. However, the business case is there for legal, financial, moral, reputational, simple common sense or many more reasons, the facts do support the value of improving employee health. In a competitive business environment, happy healthy employees are important to drive success and ensure business sustainability.
This document is useful because it encourages its audience to consider more widely than just the financial argument, sick absence and sick presence clearly has cost and often that cost is poorly understood and under estimated. Our experience is that organisations may “discount” many of the other reasons for workplace absence (bereavement, carers leave, medical incidents etc.) and rarely include within their cost models the impact of lost productivity or agency cover costs (and the relative impact on productivity and quality of temporary cover).
This report flags clearly that the money is only one dimension in considering the value of good employee health and rightly highlights that legal and regulatory compliance, and reputational impact cannot be ignored.
I valued the opportunity to speak at the launch of Public Health England and Business in the Communities co-produced toolkits for suicide prevention and dealing with the aftermath. This was a tough subject to speak publicly about and one that the large financial consultancy that hosted the event was brave to be publicly associated with. Reputationally the many companies in the audience attending were rightly concerned that suicide and mental health issues still risk impact on their brand and public perception.
However, this does not mean ignoring such issues and hoping the problem won’t come is in any way a good business strategy! In nearly 30 years in occupational health, I was surprised to tot up how often I had been asked to support business teams following an employee suicide, and to recognise the profound impact that this extreme employee health event may have.
Fortunately, suicides are not something we encounter every day, but managers do have to deal every day with common health issues and the SOM report is a timely reminder that caring about good occupational health is important.
