Corporate Wellness

Why Corporate Wellness and Wellbeing

Besides there being both a legal and moral case for Corporate Wellbeing and Wellness, there is also an excellent business case. People, undoubtedly are the key to the success of high performing teams and companies. Top-level sports teams and Elite military services from around the world have always known the critical ingredients for top-performing teams. Such organisations invest vast amounts of time, money, research and effort recruiting, selecting, training and retaining only the best. Once employed, there is an on-going and ever-evolving process, often referred to as Human Performance. This continuous process enables these organisations to get the very best from individuals and teams. In essence, Human Performance seeks to identify, remove or mitigate barriers to maximising overall performance. Many champion athletes and elite military services have a less publicised support network behind them which is integral to outstanding success. Human Performance also strives to increase the career duration of such, elite personnel and to gain a higher return on investment.

Wellbeing and Performance

It is no surprise that many of the top performing companies have implemented a similar concept in the form of Corporate Wellness programmes. Corporate Wellness programmes and Human Performance are designed to achieve similar outcomes, though in different contexts. Companies operating in the UK also have to comply with the 'Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974' and the employers common law "duty of care" to employees. The Health, Safety, and Wellbeing of employees, relates not only to physical harm, but also psychological injury too. As a result, Corporate Wellness programmes should examine mechanisms to help prevent damage in the first place and provide a rehabilitative process should any damage occur. As with Human Performance, Corporate Wellness programmes have to remove factors that hamper individual and team performance. Such factors could be physical or mental stress, Musculoskeletal / MSK aches, and pains, psychological (workplace bullying) or any number of other factors.

There has been a great deal of research over the past few decades concerning wellbeing at work and the close links to welfare and life in general. Studies have shown links between negative employee wellbeing and the detrimental impact thereof to business.

Negative employee wellbeing and performance

• Reduced productivity.
• Increased sickness and absenteeism.
• Increased mistakes and errors.
• Increased labour turnover.
• Increased disciplinary and grievance incidents.
• Lower quality of customer service.
• Lower morale and a more negative company atmosphere.
• Increased internal conflicts.
• Unhappy workers tend to be less healthy in general.

All of the factors associated with adverse employee wellbeing have a direct impact on overall company performance. Furthermore, astute employees are now seeking out companies who offer Corporate Wellness programmes and not just the bulk standard gym membership, corporate massage, health screens and private medical insurance. Corporate Wellness does not have to be expensive and can cost as little as making a meeting room available on-site. Depending on the company size and budget, a standard office room could be set up as a day clinic once a week, bi-weekly or monthly according to demand. Alternatively, large campus type businesses may choose to set up a dedicated clinic room for employee health and wellbeing purposes.

Pop-Up MSK Therapy Corporate Wellness Clinic benefits

• Excellent return on investment, due to low cost to the organisation.
• Measurable Return on Investment.
• Easily scalable Pop-Up Clinic presence.
• Independent nature of practitioners, allows employees to be frank and honest.
• Early prevention and intervention.
• Registered Practitioner(s) on site.
• Customised Education and Advice on prevention as standard.
• Training, knowledge and experience of multiple interventions.
• Less stress due to employees not being required to travel off-site for treatment.
• Highly trained and qualified Practitioner(s).
• Evidence-Based Practice.
• Professional Referral Network.

Holistic health in far more than posture

Corporate Wellness is far more than work-related posture (see Biotensegrity article). In actual, fact there is very little to no evidence that there is any such thing as a "Gold Standard" correct posture. As with most things, too much of any one thing can have a detrimental effect on health, and wellbeing. Too much load on the Musculoskeletal / MSK System frequently leads to problems and many jobs require a high degree of computer work and telephone use. In essence, moderation and flexibility is the key, as we adapt (see the Soft Tissue Adaptation to activity and injury article). Employees usually have hobbies or interests outside of work and in their day to day life. Activities, performed outside of work can have a both positive or negative knock-on effects to performance at work, and there can even be Work-related Health and Safety implications. Having a qualified Musculoskeletal therapist on-site can help in a preventive way, and in many respects provide an early intervention system. Our practitioners look at a number of highly related aspects of wellbeing, during an initial consultation including; Physical, Mental, Emotional, Social, Environmental and Spiritual health. Such an approach enables the practitioner to identify and provide the most appropriate and effective form of intervention for the patient/employee. In some cases, this may mean a referral to another discipline such as a General Practitioner, Counsellor or other appropriate and suitably qualified professional. Our practitioners have gained a huge amount of experience treating office workers, emergency service personnel, military personnel and both amateur and elite level athletes over the years.