Why ‘wellness’ makes good business sense

The flow-on impact of the global pandemic, combined with rising interest rates and other economic pressures, has taken a toll on the mental, physical and financial health of Australians.

These stressors, combined with legislation requiring employers to protect the psycho-social health of employees, means it has never been so important for companies to invest in the wellbeing of their staff.

New research by global workplace wellbeing leader TELUS Health shows the overall mental health score of working employees in Australia remains at COVID-19 pandemic levels – with some cohorts under significant pressure, including younger workers, women and parents. The number of people impacted by mental health issues, and the severity of those issues, has grown since 2019, with the latest Mental Health Index (MHI) report showing 38% of workers have a high mental health risk, and 37% have a moderate mental health risk.

Despite the roll-out of vaccinations and removal of restrictions, new stressors are detrimentally impacted people’s wellbeing, in an environment where people are less able to absorb these stressors. Cost of Living pressures have resulted in the Financial Wellbeing score for Australia being lower than early 2021.

One group of particular concern are managers within organisations. TELUS Health APAC Managing Director and Senior Vice President Jamie MacLennan says the declining mental health of managers has been a “frog in a boiling pot of water” scenario, with pressures at home, the flow-on impact of COVID and other issues facing their staff slowly taking its toll.

Pre-COVID, the MHI scores of managers was always higher than staff. However, during COVID, this situation reversed, and remains inverted.

“I think what it reflects is that, during COVID, managers were dealing with their own personal and family issues and then worrying about their staff, and the compounding effect of that has meant that several times that [score] has flipped.

“While in other countries that has changed post-COVID and managers’ scores have improved, that is not the case in Australia. Pressure on managers over the past three years has been quite heavy — [including] working from home… then deciding how to bring [staff] back into the office,” MacLennan says.

While many company boards and directors genuinely commit to incorporating wellbeing strategies, it is the front-line managers who are left to roll it out. “They’re the ones at the coal face that have to deal with it, and they’re often the least equipped in terms of being able to do so.”

For Wellbeing programs to work, managers must be trained on how to understand and respond to the mental health and wellbeing challenges of staff, the TELUS research finds.

While managers are “not expected to be counsellors or psychologists”, they do need to know how to respond to employees experiencing mental health challenges and how to direct them to the right support.

TELUS, for example, offers a dedicated manager’s hotline to help them with any questions they might have about supporting the mental health and wellbeing of staff. They complement this service with training programs for managers, to enable managers to operate effectively.

“One thing that the research clearly shows is that, in terms of mental health and wellbeing, we are still tracking at around the same levels as the early COVID years. The mental health risk really carries on far longer than the physical health risk… people’s brains have essentially been re-wired,” MacLennan adds.

“Our research shows there’s a clear link between financial wellbeing and mental health. There’s also a strong link between physical health and mental health and all these factors must be considered.”

A “tick the box” approach can do more damage than good

New laws enacted in NSW requiring companies to protect their employees’ mental and physical wellbeing has prompted a wave of new employee assistance plan (EAP) and wellbeing apps to enter the market. However, companies that subscribe to these Apps without doing their due diligence risk taking a “tick the box” approach to supporting their employees’ wellbeing, MacLennan warns.  

“Genuine mental health and wellbeing support is not a ‘nice to have’ any longer. It’s a commercial imperative for organisations and they need to treat it like that.

“Back pre-COVID many organisations did have wellbeing as a ‘tick the box’ approach, where they thought ‘I’ll throw in an EAP so if anyone ever asks, I’ve got that’, but they didn’t promote or support it in any way. They might also have offered other wellness perks. But, it’s not a true wellbeing strategy and it doesn’t work because it doesn’t resonate with people,” MacLennan says.

“An EAP is not a wellbeing strategy. It’s an important component of mental health support for a wellbeing strategy, but it’s not the whole thing.”

TELUS Health APAC Managing Director and Senior Vice President Jamie MacLennan

MacLennan says a wellbeing strategy needs to be incorporated into an organisation’s overall Business and People strategies, and have measurable goals and targets. TELUS, for example, provides a holistic approach to mental, physical and financial wellbeing that combines digital and in-person services, such as counselling, training, financial and legal assistance, and physical health checks.

“You have got to set metrics and track them to meaningfully assess it, otherwise it’s nice to have, but what is the outcome?” he says. “One of the things we do… is we track the outcome of the work we do, and then correlate it against our Global research to advise and inform clients about what is happening and how they are performing.”

Getting it right makes good business sense

MacLennan says for companies like TELUS, measuring an organisation’s data means that the return on investment (ROI) of a wellness strategy is something that can be calculated.

“A properly executed health and wellness strategy is absolutely a commercial imperative, and should be treated by management as such,” MacLennan says.

A commitment to wellness, both physical and mental, is something that employees have come to expect from employers in an increasingly competitive market. TELUS Health research found that younger workers would trade a salary increase for “greater wellbeing support”, MacLennan says.

“It’s one of those virtuous circles whereby if you support peoples’ wellbeing, they are going to feel much more engaged with the organisation, they [will be] much more inclined to stay with the company and they will also be a lot more productive as well,” he says. “But if you get it wrong, the opposite is true. It can be a disaster for business and employees’ sense of wellbeing.”

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TELUS Health is the global leader in workplace wellbeing programs and EAP programs. TELUS Health – which supports more than 67 million people across 15,000 companies globally, recently acquired leading employee assistance brands Benestar and LifeWorks, further solidifying its position as the leading EAP and corporate wellbeing provider in ANZ and the APAC Region.