Companies investing in health promotion can obtain almost a fourfold
return on their outlay thanks to increased staff productivity, the
results of a Unilever exercise indicate.
The consumer goods company ran a year-long experiment in which it gave
600 of its UK employees advice on nutrition, stress and fitness, then
compared their work performance with that of 1700 workers who had not
received such help.
Analysis by the Harvard Medical School and the US-based Institute for
Health and Productivity Management showed that performance, as rated by
the staff themselves, improved by nine per cent among those who had
received health advice – but stood still among the others.
Short-term absence was slightly lower among those who received health
promotion advice, whereas the number of sick days in the control group
rose. The healthiest 25 per cent of the health promotion group was
estimated to be 18 per cent more productive than the least healthy
quarter in the control group.
Vielife, which provided Unilever’s health promotion packages,
‘conservatively’ estimates that the improvements translate into a
return on investment of £3.73 ($6.50) for every £1 spent. Unilever says
it is looking at expanding health promotion activities as a result.
Business in the Community recently began a campaign to persuade
companies to put workplace health programmes higher on their social
responsibility agendas – a view endorsed by the UK government (EP7,
issue 3, p7).
