Why employers spend money on employee health: Interviews with occupational health and safety professionals from British Industry

• Published in: Safety science Vol. 47; no. 2; pp. 163 - 169
• Main Authors: Miller, P., Haslam, C.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Kidlington Elsevier India Pvt Ltd 01-02-2009; Elsevier
• Subjects: Biological and medical sciences; Cost and cost analysis; Cost of illness; Employer health costs; Healthcare economics and organisations; Medical sciences; Miscellaneous; Occupational health; Occupational medicine; Public health. Hygiene-occupational medicine; United Kingdom; Great Britain; Europe; Cost and cost analysis; Occupational health; Cost of illness; Employer health costs; Healthcare economics and organisations; Human; Costs; Health staff; Health; Interview; Industry; Work safety; Employee; Employers; Health economy; Public health organization; Economic aspect; Cost analysis; Occupational medicine
• ISSN: 0925-7535; 1879-1042
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ssci.2008.04.001

To better understand the information that is used in business cases for employee health activities.
Interviews with 18 occupational health and safety professionals at major organisations in the UK were conducted to explore attitudes, motivations, behaviours and information needs about employee health investment.
The occupational health and safety professionals interviewed for this study have described how employee health issues are discussed in their organisations. Ethical arguments about it being the ‘right thing to do’ are common and are believed to have impact. Unsurprisingly legal compliance is stated to be the driver of most employee health activity. Higher-level activities and resource do require a business case. It is suggested that currently business cases for employee health are often not overly empirical, with more intuitive arguments appealing to people management issues, notions of corporate reputation and alignment with business objectives. Data on benchmarking and some kind of return-on-investment assessment are normally required. Data on cost of illness (mostly expressed via sickness absence), direct health expenditure per employee and insurance premiums are also used. These data are mostly captured by existing sources and procedural systems, although sickness absence data especially is often thought to be unreliable. Data on staff retention and productivity were considered relevant but not currently used or analysed by this sample. There was support for the notion that more robust empirical business cases may help overcome some of the barriers that were identified, for example where costs are more quantifiable than benefits.
There is scope to make significant improvements to the business case for employee health investments in UK organisations through better measurement of impact on productivity and reputation risk and greater business-aligned communication by health professionals. More empirical business cases that meet the needs of decision-makers are more likely to attract investment into employee health activities.