Mental health interventions are yielding significant ROI, even with only limited investment.
The Health and Wellness in Workplaces: What Works? - ROI analysis of Health and Wellness Interventions, just released by Cigna, reveals that the most successful wellness programs are those that have been carefully selected to tackle specific loss-drivers. For example, implementing case management to drive reductions in absenteeism, disease management to reduce healthcare claims costs, and lifestyle programs to tackle physical health. As an important first step, employers should review employee data that has been collected from health screenings or self-reported health assessments, to identify the specific underlying drivers of ill-health or poor well-being before designing a wellness programme.
Mental health interventions yield x60 ROI
The report identified that mental health interventions yielded high returns, with the most effective programme achieving a significant return on the initial investment. Mental health-related programmes include stress management coaching for employees, providing work-life balance training sessions, and meditation classes. Specifically, stress management interventions, such as counselling sessions with clinical professionals, and well-being support, such as online coaching, yielded high returns compared to the other interventions.
"Mental health initiatives yielded up to a sixty-fold return on investment."
Jason Sadler, President, Cigna International Markets said, “The concept of workplace wellness has risen up the corporate agenda, and employers recognise that investment in effective programmes helps employees to be healthier and more productive. Our report shows that mental health initiatives yielded up to a sixty-fold return on investment, yet our latest COVID-19 Global Impact Study showed that only 26% of people said their employers currently offer such support. With 53% of people now saying they want more well-being support; this report is a valuable tool to help employers and HR professionals to design such programmes.”
Middle managers vital
Programmes with middle management support averaged an ROI of 10x the initial investment. This is due to these individuals having the highest level of direct team management within most organisations. Therefore, to help instil health and wellness across an organisation, middle management should be central to programme design and implementation.
Dr Dawn Soo, Regional Medical Officer & Head of Wellness, Asia Pacific, Cigna explained, “Companies should identify wellness champions from middle management that possess the passion and influence to motivate employees. These people will help ensure the success of wellness efforts by socially connecting with employees and helping to educate colleagues about the programmes on offer and their benefits.”
Wellness programme success, even on micro budgets
The study highlights that a comprehensive wellness programme can be developed with a low level of investment and still yield high returns when they are well designed and supported. Out of the 90 wellness programmes that reported investment levels, low investment programmes (<US$100/person/year) reported an ROI of 13.2x, compared to 3.2x for moderate investments (US$100-200/person/year), and 3.0x for high investments (>US$200/person/year).
In addition to monetary incentives, the report also highlights several factors that have been shown to influence, and reduce, the level of required investment, including the infrastructure, capability and internal resources.
Sadler concluded, “Wellness programmes which are grounded in a solid understanding of how well-being issues manifest in a workplace can generate impressive returns. The pandemic has shifted the way we work, and employee programmes must adapt to employees’ changing needs. It is, therefore, critical that employers develop robust frameworks to ensure that all well-being interventions deliver the desired impact.”
"The pandemic has shifted the way we work, and employee programmes must adapt to employees’ changing needs."
Paul Arkwright
Publisher
