The report includes new findings on what boosts workers’ health and productivity, as well as the state of workers’ wellness globally.
Image: Global Wellness InstituteImage: Global Wellness Institute
The Global Wellness Institute (GWI) recently released the 2016 Future of Wellness at Work report, along with its companion research piece, “Unlocking the Power of Company Caring.” The Future of Wellness at Work offers in-depth analysis of the state of un-wellness in the global workforce, as well as workplace wellness approaches worldwide and in the U.S. The report also forecasts the many ways that work and workplace wellness concepts will change dramatically in the future.
Meanwhile, Unlocking the Power of Company Caring, a white paper on findings from a GWI/Everyday Health survey of full-time American employees, gauges how employees feel about many aspects of their work culture and wellness programs. The overwhelming finding: to understand what has the most powerful impact on employee wellness, you must look well beyond the wellness “program.” Instead, the pivotal factor was whether an employee identified their company as “caring about their health/wellness,” and when they did, their overall health, stress levels and job engagement improved significantly. The report then analyzes the tangible and intangible elements that constitute “company caring,” and have the biggest impact on employee wellness, finding they differ significantly for Millennial, Gen X and Baby Boomer employees.
“The findings surprised us; we saw significant, diverse and positive implications when a company is perceived to care about an employee’s personal wellness, and extremely negative outcomes when it was perceived as a non-caring company,” said Global Wellness Institute Chairman & CEO Susie Ellis. “And we found that caring companies tackle not just ‘tangibles’ like healthy food and work spaces, they address emotional, relational, organizational, intellectual and financial ‘wellness’ at work (whether it’s giving workers more work flexibility or encouraging socializing and friendships).”
Ellis noted that being a company that “cares” is easier than management may think. And while intangible “work culture” components may seem elusive, the research shows that they are the true drivers of health and productivity – according to employees. Both studies reach the same conclusion: the current, compartmentalized “programmatic” approaches to workplace wellness will disappear in the future, and companies will reorient their wellness strategies around culture-wide “caring,” paying close attention to what that means for their particular workforce.
3 KEY FINDINGS:
The Global Worker Is Unwell
Most of the world’s 3.4 billion workers are unwell. They live with serious economic insecurity: 74% make less than $13/day; 45% are in low-skill/manual jobs; 77% are in part-time or unstable jobs. They’re aging at an historic rate: 18% of the workforce will be over 55 by 2030. They’re unhealthy: 52% are overweight/obese, and 76% report they’re struggling with their wellbeing.
Wellness Programs Reach Less Than One In Ten Workers Worldwide
Only 9% of the global workforce has access to some form of wellness program at work. The breakdown in penetration: North America 52% of employees, Europe 23%, Middle East/North Africa 7%, Latin America/Caribbean 5%, Asia 5% and Sub-Saharan Africa 1%. The U.S., where companies pay for employee healthcare, is by far the largest market and innovator, but as chronic disease skyrockets globally, and healthcare costs (paid via taxes) spike in markets like Europe, the GWI predicts significant growth in global workplace wellness spending in the next decade.
Work To Change Radically: From Information To “Wisdom” Economy
The GWI report forecasts the many ways that work will change in the future. Hierarchical management structures will be replaced by models giving employees greater autonomy and accountability. Long-term, stable jobs (at set locations/hours) will give way to an increasingly virtual and “free agent” workforce. As older workers retire later, the workforce will be intensely multigenerational: by 2020 teens and employees over 70 will work side-by-side. The most profound shift: the Information Age will be succeeded by a “Wisdom” or “Human” Age: as robots and Artificial Intelligence coopt many work tasks, qualities not replicable by machines (collaboration, creativity, empathy, constant learning, etc.) will be in high demand. And these qualities demand the highest level of mental and physical wellness.
Read the rest of the Key Findings, as well as the full 2016 Future of Wellness at Work Report, here.
For more information on the Global Wellness Institute, please visit globalwellnessinstitute.org.
