"While it’s clear that assessing health & wellbeing risk profiles can have benefits for employees, it can also benefit the business."
- Debra Clark, Head of Wellbeing at Towergate Employee Benefits
Of those surveyed (500), 89% of employers believe it’d be valuable to have a better understanding of the health & wellbeing risk profile of their workforce, yet less than half (46%) strongly agreed that they’d have a ‘good understanding’ of this in practice.
60% said health & wellbeing risk profiling could keep employees in the workplace, followed by aid recruitment & retention (54%), and help identify the most relevant support available (53%).
Towergate Employee Benefits has highlighted various methods for assessing employee health & wellbeing, ranging from lifestyle questionnaires to medical tests. Although questionnaires were the most popular choice amongst those surveyed (53%), Towergate believes medical tests would be more informative.
Just 17% of employers use medical tests to assess the risk of serious ill-health, but 33% use them for weight & fitness assessments. Worryingly, almost two in ten (18%) employers don’t undertake risk profiling at all.
Furthermore, only 69% of employers carry out health & wellbeing risk profiling for all employees. Towergate believes there are advantages to profiling the entire workforce, especially when tailoring support. This might include implementing smoking cessation programmes, mental health support, and health-related advice services.
“While it’s clear that assessing health & wellbeing risk profiles can have benefits for employees, it can also benefit the business. Employers will be able to put the most appropriate support in place, which could aid recruitment, retention, and reduce absenteeism,” explained Debra Clark, Head of Wellbeing at Towergate Employee Benefits.
“It’s great that employers see value in risk profiling, but now they must take action to gain a stronger understanding of their specific workforce, so they can offer the most appropriate support,” she concluded.
