Takeaways

• Employees expect to receive more than just a paycheck from their employers. And one of the things they're looking for? It's holistic well-being.

• The upcoming Global Wellness Day (GWD) 2023 on 10th June—theme: "One day can change your whole life #ThinkMagenta"—is an excellent opportunity for you to start promoting employee wellness.

• Promoting employee wellness could translate to countless business benefits, from reduced absenteeism to improved company image.

• Of course, the GWD is just a one-day event. To make a lasting, positive impact on employee wellness, consider rolling out long-term corporate wellness programs, such as health screening and vaccination programs, lifestyle improvement programs, and chronic disease management programs.

Today’s employees want more than just a paycheck from their employers. Gartner believes corporations must shift to a human-centered value proposition that treats employees as people, not workers, to attract, retain, and motivate talents in the post-pandemic world rife with quiet quitting. How?

Gartner outlines five crucial components in "The Human Deal”: deeper connections, radical flexibility, personal growth, shared purpose, and holistic well-being. But tackling all five components simultaneously as an employer is akin to trying to make croissants without baking experience and/or climbing Mount Everest without high-altitude mountain climbing experience. So, start small. One at a time.

In fact, why not leverage the upcoming Global Wellness Day (GWD) 2023 on 10th June 2023 to promote employee holistic well-being (which encompasses physical and emotional health)?

Global Wellness Day 2023

Global Wellness Day (GWD) is a not-for-profit social project dedicated to living well. 

Since its first event in Turkey in 2012, GWD has expanded its reach and is now celebrated globally on the second Saturday of June annually. Its tagline, “One day can change your whole life”, aims to inspire people (even if just for one day) to think about how they could live a healthier and better life. #DanceMagenta is the theme of GWD 2023. Per GWD, #DanceMagenta is the organization's way of inviting people of all ages to live life with dance—not just with the body but also with thoughts and life in general.

Here are two things you could do to help your employees get the most out of GWD 2023 (feel free to brainstorm for more!):

1. Send out a mass email highlighting the event and getting people to seriously consider what they could start doing to live healthier and better lives (you could also incentivize responses as you see fit, e.g., offering gift cards or vouchers)

2. Encourage employees to participate in #DanceMagenta by setting up a dance party in a communal area (e.g., employee lounges)

The importance of employee wellness and health 

GWD 2023, #DanceMagenta, and promoting employee wellness overall sounds nice for the employees … but what’s in it for you, the employer? As it turns out, everything from lower absenteeism levels to increased customer satisfaction.

According to a 2019 meta-analysis of 339 independent research studies, "Employee Well-being, Productivity, and Firm Performance", researchers from the London School of Economics, MIT Sloan, and Saïd Business School (of the University of Oxford) found a strong, positive correlation between higher employee well-being and work satisfaction, productivity levels, and business-unit level profitability. They also found a strong negative correlation between employee well-being and staff turnover.

Plenty of other research has also found that improved employee wellness could:

• Lower healthcare costs borne by employers by as much as 75%

• Reduce absenteeism by 14% to 19%

• Improve work culture

• Enhance company image (89% of employees at companies that support well-being initiatives are more likely to recommend their company as a good place to work)

• Improve employee engagement (employees who strongly agree that their employer cares about their overall well-being are 3x more likely to be engaged at work)

• Reduce workplace stress (employees who aren’t thriving are 48% more likely to report daily stress)

• Increase work safety

Employee wellness program ideas for companies in Singapore

Given the overwhelming number of employer benefits from promoting employee well-being, boasting wellness as part of your company's culture is a no-brainer. (Not to mention, 75% of professionals have already come to expect health and well-being benefits as a given from employers.) And, at the risk of stating the obvious, you cannot simply get your employees to participate in GWD 2023, then call it a day.

Promoting employee wellness isn’t a day's effort. Instead, it should be a long-term initiative that supports your employees for as long as they work for and with you. Need inspiration? We’ve got you covered. Here are three examples of health and wellness programs commonly found in Singapore companies.

#1: Health screening and vaccination programs

Offer employees free, regular health screening and vaccination services to help them detect underlying medical conditions (if any) in the early, often-easily-treatable stages and protect them from vaccine-preventable diseases (vaccine examples include influenza and human papillomavirus).

#2: Lifestyle improvement programs

Turn your employees’ lifestyle improvement ideas (e.g., gathered from the GWD 2023 mass company email survey) into reality by pushing out a lifestyle improvement program that’ll help them live a physically active lifestyle and/or make wiser nutritional choices, which may, in turn, allow them to get to a healthy BMI of between 18.5 to 24.9 and/or maintain a healthier weight.

 To illustrate just how powerful and life-changing a corporate lifestyle improvement program (LIP) could be for your employees, NOVI's LIP program, which provided participants with a continuous glucose sensor and four weeks of digital health coaching, helped 88% of participants lose weight. On average, participants lost 1.8 kg (3.97 lbs) or 2.4% of their body weight after four weeks. And participants with baseline BMI > 27.5 lost 2.6 kg (5.73 lbs) or 2.6% of their body weight.

#3: Chronic disease management program

25% of Singaporeans aged 40 years and above have at least one chronic disease—diabetes, high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, and stroke. Providing employees with chronic disease management programs (CDMP) could help reduce their medical leave and hospitalization rates by equipping them with the tools (including but not limited to medical specialist care, plus personalized nutrition and fitness guidance) they need to manage their health conditions better.

As outlined in this 2021 study published in JMIR Diabetes, after NOVI’s three-month CDMP, participants with type 2 diabetes or prediabetes from the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) reported an average HbA1c level of 7.0%—the level recommended in Singapore’s national clinical guidelines for good diabetes control—from an average baseline of 7.6%. In addition, participants with starting BMI ≥ 27.5 also saw an average, clinically significant reduction of 5.2 kg (11.5 lbs) or 5.8% of their body weight.

A similar 12-week CDMP program by NOVI led to similar health-improving results, where participants with:

• Obesity losing 3.9 kg (8.60 lbs) or 4.35% of their body weight

• Hyperlipidaemia lowering their average LDL by 15.9 mg/dl (a 10.77% reduction)

• Hypertension reducing their systolic blood pressure by 14.24%, and diastolic blood pressure by 8.91%

Check out how NOVI improved clinical outcomes for diabetes. Partnership reduced HbA1c and weight.

Give your employees the gift of health screening (and maybe more)

If you'd like to roll out any—or all?—of the employee wellness programs, NOVI's Health Screening Packages may be a good fit. We can help customize your health screening packages to suit your employees' needs and company's budget.

• Easy Access, Anywhere. NOVI’s program is digitally enabled, and is accessible to employees who are constantly on the move.

• Holistic Approach. NOVI combines medical specialist care with nutrition and fitness guidance so employees can get a complete solution.

• Remote Monitoring. Continuous glucose monitors were included as part of the program for real-time monitoring of blood sugar.

• Highly Personalized. NOVI’s solution is highly personalized for each employee. From eating and exercise to medication and supplements, each employee gets a tailored plan.

If you have a question about our corporate programs, send us an enquiry and we will be in touch.