"Voc rehab has fast become an employer essential. Representing the crucial - and often missing - link between health and work support."
- Dr Julie Denning - Working to Wellbeing
Working To Wellbeing has launched a new partnership with BW Consulting, aiming to work closely with advisers and to ensure vocational rehabilitation reaches more organisations, either as a standalone proposition or via their health or risk concierge services.
This is with a view to supporting more employees with chronic conditions to stay in work and thrive, and to ensure sustainable returns to work following long-term absence.
This announcement comes amid a 14-percentage point confidence drop in terms of supporting employees in the workplace if they are suffering from a long-term health condition.
New research from Working To Wellbeing, in partnership with Opinium, found that 56% of line managers surveyed feel confident, compared to 70% when this research was last carried out in 2022.
"To date in our industry, vocational rehabilitation is primarily introduced to employer clients via group income protection," Barry Waring, founder of BW Consulting, said. "It works well there. But scaling it up in a way that meets Sir Charlie Mayfield’s Keep Britain Working goals necessitates voc rehab collaborations with advisers as well as insurers.
"And to ensure adviser and client confidence, such collaborations demand a service provider that’s highly experienced, evidence-based and firmly centred on human-to-human support. Working To Wellbeing meets all these criteria."
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Dr Julie Denning, managing director at Working to Wellbeing, added: "We’re really excited to work with BW Consulting. Voc rehab has fast become an employer essential. Representing the crucial - and often missing - link between health and work support, it represents a core-evidence-based component of any effective stay-in-work and return-to-work strategy.
"Especially in smaller businesses, where support can be fragmented, data-light and increasingly digital, losing the human connection people need.
"By collaborating with advisers, we can ensure our essential services reach more organisations, helping build employer confidence to support all their employees to thrive, whatever their complex health needs or chronic challenges."
