Posted on December 8th, 2009 in Industry News
Wellness in the workplace is taking on increased significance in South Africa and all over the world. Our international affiliates, Buck Consultants, conduct an annual survey into wellness programmes at workplaces across the globe. For the first time, South Africa was significantly represented in this survey. The results constitute a powerful benchmark by which any South African employer can gauge the effectiveness of their wellness initiatives compared to their peers – here in South Africa as well as internationally.
We would like to highlight some of the results of the survey here, however we have been able to make the full report downloadable free of charge. We hope this adds value to your internal evaluation of your wellness strategy.
Prevalence
27% of South African employers have a fully implemented strategy, compared to 77% in North America and around 40% in Latin America, Europe and Asia. Our levels of implementation can be most closely compared to Australia at 31%. Given South Africa’s status as a developing nation, and another 42% of local employers who have already partially implemented a strategy, South African employers appear to be taking the challenge of providing wellness programmes more and more seriously.
Objectives
South African employers overwhelmingly cited “improving productivity” and “reducing absenteeism” as the main reasons for introducing wellness programmes. Elsewhere in the world, these two motives also featured strongly, with an additional focus on “improving worker morale”. The only exception was the United States, where the main reason was “reducing health insurance costs” – in South Africa, such reductions are not possible for many employers due to the way health insurance is regulated.
The main issues driving wellness programmes worldwide were stress, exercise and nutrition. Africa was a notable exception in that HIV/AIDS featured second on our list while not being even a remote priority for any other region. This is to be expected given our country’s HIV prevalence, however it is sobering to see to what extent this has become a priority in the workplace.
Incentives
28% of South African employers in the survey offered additional incentives. We differed from our competitors elsewhere in the world by putting more emphasis on refraining from smoking, and also adherence to a disease management programme – again particularly relevant given our high HIV prevalence.
According to the survey, South African employers rate the effectiveness of wellness incentives higher than anyone else in the world: 34% of ratings were “significantly effective” or better, compared o 17% worldwide.
Measurement and outcomes
The above statistic is backed up by the measured levels of satisfaction with the programmes and take up rates among the employees, which at 39% and 31% were higher than the world average.
The survey addressed many other aspects of wellness, and we encourage the human resource professionals in your organisation to examine the results more closely.
The full Global Survey of Health Promotion and Workplace Wellness Strategies can be downloaded here:
