BITC's Business HealthCheck Tool

The tool will help employers quantify the costs of illness to their business and the financial benefits of wellness programmes.  It will also help assess the business case for investing in employee wellness programmes, and lead to better, informed decision-making regarding wellness initiatives.

The tool, has been developed in response to Dame Carol Black's review of the health of Britain's working age population, 'Working for a healthier tomorrow'. The ability to definitively measure a business' investment in their employees' health and wellbeing will catalyse debate on the subject, and transform it into a boardroom agenda item. BITC intends to use this tool as part of its wider health promotion campaign.

"To date, the business view on health and wellbeing has been mostly narrow and a subject for compliance," says Louise Aston, BITC Campaign Director. "But opinion is changing. We are now working with UK businesses using quantitative tools, such as the one developed by PricewaterhouseCoopers, to show the potential ROI of investing in programmes which reduce absence, boost productivity and help retain and motivate talent. A number of our members are currently trialling the tool which will be further developed over the next three months, and we hope will deliver real value to the business community."

News Round Up:

"Educating and training line managers is critical to cutting absence rates and preventing unnecessary long term sick leave" Key Theme at the IRS Managing Absence and Atendance Conference.

Econmoic Downturn is causing a sharp rise in stress, anxiety and general mental ill health among workers. An AXA PPP poll found that money worriesare leaidn to stress and anxiety for more than a third of staff. Beware that some staff can then come to work when they are not well enough because they are worried about the financial consequences of being off sick.

Conferences:

Health and Wellbeing @Work 24-25th February 2009 NEC, Birmingham http://www.healthatwork2009.co.uk/ 

Work, Health and Vocational Rehabilitation Conference, 17 & 18th March, University of Salford www.fhsc.salford.ac.uk/conferences

Are you a Health Professional? Then you may be interested in some of the new courses myself and Jain Holmes will be running and / or involved with in 2009. please contact us via the website with "HP courses" in the title for more info.