Health Care
Engaging your employees
How to help keep your team healthy to improve productivity
By Matt McClellan
Smart Business Indianapolis | November 2009
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Sally Stephens, President, Spectrum Health Systems
If your employees don’t take an interest in their health care, their productivity declines, company morale takes a hit and the entire organization suffers.
“Employers are increasingly concerned about finding ways to improve employee productivity while reducing the number of sick days and health insurance claims,” says Sally Stephens, president of Spectrum Health Systems.
Keeping employees healthy is key to keeping them engaged in their role with the organization, Stephens says — a factor that is often overlooked as companies struggle to find solutions to rising health care costs.
Smart Business spoke with Stephens about the factors that prevent employee engagement and how to remove those factors from your organization.
Why should employers be concerned with employees’ health?
Research shows that healthy employees get sick less often, miss fewer days of work and have fewer workers’ compensation claims. Morale and productivity will also improve in a working environment in which employees are healthy and engaged in their work.
What are the key factors that prevent employee engagement?
One of the key factors is lack of motivation. While employers that see their profit margins diminished by the increasing cost of providing health insurance benefits are strongly motivated to find solutions that can impact their costs, their employees may not share that motivation.
In addition, as employees see their own financial assets dwindle, they may be inclined to put their health — their No. 1 asset — on the back burner. By ignoring their own health issues, employees may be deferring costs in the short term to potentially incur greater costs in the future.
Another key factor that prevents employee engagement is high stress levels. Because most employees are concerned about job security, managing their stress level may prove to be quite a challenge. If not managed carefully, uncontrolled stress can take a toll on an individual’s overall health, leading to a decrease in productivity and an increase in absenteeism. Overly stressed employees are focused elsewhere and may not be managing their health appropriately.
