Dailycsr.com – 11 August 2015 – The Morgan Redwood provides various leadership consultancies which conducted a survey to find out how multiple businesses regard the issue of their employee health. The results of the survey were something like this as per Health+Safet At Work:
83% of businesses think staff wellbeing and business performance are linked Only 46% of businesses regard employee health as an employer's responsibility Just 5.6% of businesses see wellbeing as an HR priority Only 46% of businesses regard employee health as an employer's responsibility, compared to 95% six years ago, a new survey has found. The survey was conducted by questioning various representatives of respective businesses, wherein, as mentioned above, eighty three percent of case studies thought that “staff wellbeing” is linked with “business performance”. However, only a quarter of them verbally acknowledged its connection by stating that both were “very closely connected”, while rest fifty seven percent only saw its faint connections. Nevertheless, another 6.8% failed to perceive any link between the two issues and claimed that staff wellbeing and the performance were “not at all connected”.
The business representatives to be questioned were either the Human Resource department’s respective heads or one of the boards of directors themselves. The survey reached out to “more than 250 UK businesses” which ranged from the mix sector of sizes, although the yard stick was that the two thirds employing ratio of each company was well over “250 poeple” and nothing short of that.
Interestingly, Morgan Redwood had conducted the same study on a much smaller scale which included one hundred businesses wherein the directors and the head of HR team were questioned. The previous study was conducted in the year of 2009 within a similar mix business sector. As per the earlier results, “95% businesses” held themselves responsible for dutifully ensuring the healthcare of their employees. Comparing both the results, the Managing Director of Morgan Redwood, Janice Haddon reflects that:
“The latest findings really do indicate a startling shift in employer opinion. In 2014 the CIPD reported that 40% of employers are seeing a rise in stress related absence and reported mental health problems, such as anxiety and depression, so the fact that companies are less inclined to see wellbeing as within their remit of responsibility is perplexing.”
The latest report of Morgan Redwood also displayed a low priority given to the employee wellbeing issue by the HR team. Only “5.6% of businesses” practiced otherwise by bestowing considerable priority on the matter which placed the issue on the twelfth rung of the lift. In fact, “39.2%” of businesses prioritise attracting “better talent to the business” over the former while another “36.8%” consider “reducing staff churn” to be more important. In Haddon’s words:
“Perhaps employers are putting recruitment ahead of the need to tend to existing employee needs, which means they’ve taken their eye off the wellbeing ball.
“Burnt out, poorly treated employees will end up becoming detrimental in the long run, so employers need to ensure they allocate sufficient resource to cater to the full spectrum of employee needs”.
References:
http://www.healthandsafetyatwork.com/hsw/health/employee-wellbeing-hr-survey