28th July 2005
UnumProvident Chairman and Managing Director, Susan Ring, is a member of the Business in the Community's (BitC) leadership team, Business Action on Health, which aims to support businesses in improving the impact of health and well-being at work and establishing reporting on health as commonplace in UK boardrooms.
As part of the leadership team UnumProvident, the UK's leading disability insurer, is supporting, along with Standard Life Healthcare, Business in the Community's (BitC) new report on 'Promoting Health at Work'. The report was commissioned to examine the importance attached to health at work and how companies are dealing with it.
The workplace is a natural meeting point on corporate and personal responsibility on health. Opportunities exist within the insurance industry to support clients in this area, whilst demonstrating best practice as employers find themselves.
Main findings of the study, which analysed the responses of 454 Chief Executives, Finance Directors and HR Directors, included:
- A healthy workforce is rated in the top five personnel issues that boardrooms are concerned about now;
- All directors predict that health at work will increase in importance to their business in the next three years;
- There is a lack of definition of health at work and little clarity about how to measure it; and,
- 70 per cent of businesses are not effectively promoting health and well-being at work.
Despite the fact that sickness absence is not a new issue for companies, costing UK employers £12 billion per year*, one in four CEOs and FDs questioned do not know what ill-health costs their organisation. At the same time CEOs and FDs believe that improving employees' energy and alertness is more important to improving productivity than performance-related pay.
Supporting the BitC leadership team is part of UnumProvident's ongoing commitment to promoting health in the workplace, which it sees as an important factor in improving the nation's health and combating the rising costs of workplace sickness absence in coming years.
Susan Ring, Chairman and Managing Director of UnumProvident said:
At present, many companies don't have the necessary systems in place to gauge the true cost of sickness absence to their business. However, with underlying psycho-social issues, such as stress, depression or anxiety, on the increase, it is now more vital than ever that employers work to create an environment that actively promotes the health and well-being of their workforce. This is why UnumProvident is working with Business in the Community as a founding member of the Business Action on Health campaign, to support, challenge and inspire companies to improve their impact on employee health and well-being.
ENDS
* According to the CBI, absence costs UK employers £12 billion a year, the direct cost of absence is £495 per employee and higher in larger organisations. Indirect costs are considerable, adding £667 per employee on average. Minor illness causes most cases of absence. Long-term absence accounts for one third of days lost. 168 million working days were lost through absence in 2004. Source: Who Cares Wins, Absence and labour turnover 2005, CBI & AXA PPP Healthcare.