Employers and insurers try to restore
and update pre-pandemic programs
By Len Strazewski
Corporate gyms were once the rage. Employees would come in early or take long lunch breaks to ride exercycles or run on treadmills. When they turned an ankle or needed a flu shot, they could head to the employee clinic where they also got their annual health screening.
If they need counseling, Employee Assistance Programs might offer a few brief counseling sessions and referrals.
Then came COVID-19, as thousands flooded hospitals and workers found new ways to perform their job duties from home to avoid exposure to the virus that devastated workplaces.
“There has been a movement to improve health and fitness
in different ways, and attention has moved from just the physical
to physical, intellectual, vocational, social, emotional, spiritual, and financial.”
—Adam Seidner, M.D., MPH
Chief Medical Officer
The Hartford
Now, more than three years later, employers and insurers are trying to get a handle on restoring their central workplaces and the wellness programs that they had built over the past decade before the pandemic. Wellness is still important and valuable, they agree.
“There has been a clear return on investment in wellness,” says Adam Seidner, M.D., MPH, chief medical officer at The Hartford. The corporate human resources budgets and employee benefits industry profits have benefited, but after the pandemic, wellness has evolved as employees moved out of a central workplace.
Wellness programs have reduced absenteeism, increased productivity and reduced overall healthcare costs, he says. The programs have reduced healthcare costs by three dollars for every dollar invested, he says.
“There has been a movement to improve health and fitness in different ways, and attention has moved from just the physical to physical, intellectual, vocational, social, emotional, spiritual, and financial,” Seidner says. Employers are moving toward remote applications, such as online services, cell phone apps, clinic physicals and subscription services such as Peloton and gym memberships.
Some employers are expanding wellness services, he says, but delivering them in different ways. They are expanding screening services, including cancer screenings such as colonoscopies, bringing mobile screening services to central locations and areas where their employees have clustered.
The Hartford’s 2023 Future of Benefits Report supports increased employer investment, indicating that wellness has value that needs to be restored to employers and their employees.
The survey indicates that employees live in a precarious state of happiness and burnout remains a key concern for employers. While they appreciate connection with their fellow workers, they suffer financial stress from their jobs, which affects their productivity at work as well as their mental health and physical stress.
Mental health, employees said in the survey, is important and “productivity is affected, and stigma is a barrier to seeking care.” In addition, “U.S. workers of all generations believe employers should provide more mental health training for managers and resources to support workers and their families,” the survey executive summary says.
Additional findings from the report show that 78% of employers are very/extremely interested in overall employee wellness, because U.S. workers acknowledge that multiple areas of employee health always or almost always affect their productivity at work, with 30% citing financial health, 24% mental health, and 18% physical health.
“At Guardian, we believe that just as mental, physical, and financial
stressors are interconnected, so too are the solutions for improving overall wellness.”
—Andrew McMahon
Chief Executive Officer and President
Guardian Life
Without physical and mental healthcare and, in particular, behavioral health, 30% of U.S. workers in 2023 reported feeling depressed or anxious at least a few times per week. This pattern is higher for Gen Z, which has a higher negative exposure—44%.
Other industry research supports the trend. In its 12th Annual Workplace Benefits Study, The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America has found that overall employee well-being has dropped to its lowest level in 12 years, with most Americans citing personal finance-related stressors as the primary contributor to their declining well-being.
The new report, entitled “Mind, Body, and WalletTM 2023: Economic challenges and uncertainty take a toll on well-being,” surveyed more than 4,000 employees and benefit decision-makers and found that four in 10 American workers are living paycheck to paycheck. The economy, inflation, and paying off debt are the primary wallet-related concerns for Americans.
“Financial pressure doesn’t exist in a silo and isn’t something that individuals forget about at the end of the workday. When Americans are up at night worrying about finances, it is easy to see how these concerns directly contribute to declining mental and physical wellness,” said Andrew McMahon, chief executive officer and president of Guardian Life, in the report.
“At Guardian, we believe that just as mental, physical, and financial stressors are interconnected, so too are the solutions for improving overall wellness. Our report validates our belief that a holistic approach to wellness—leveraging workplace benefits, individual solutions, and a variety of other resources—is the best way forward.”
“Our study shows that employers understand that they have a responsibility to meet employees’ financial wellness needs, with 80% saying that improving workers’ financial security is very or extremely important,” adds Jonathan Mayhew, head of Group Benefits at Guardian Life, in a study press release. “Additionally, close to half of American workers said they would face financial hardship without their workplace benefits, so offering the right mix of such benefits is paramount to these efforts.”
While the report indicates progress in terms of the variety of workplace benefits offered to support wellness, more can still be done when it comes to building supportive day-to-day workplace cultures. For example, one in three workers still rate their mental health as fair or poor and a growing number of employee absences are attributed to mental health issues—with such absences contributing to employee financial stress.
“In our experience, providing inclusive, compassionate, and flexible mental health support not only boosts our colleagues’ well-being, but it also contributes to our high-performing culture,” says Stacey Hoin, chief human resources officer at Guardian Life. “We were encouraged to find that many employers are interested in doing more, with three-quarters noting that expanding mental health-related resources is very important.”
But the Guardian study still acknowledges gaps, some indicated by the deepening understanding of the diversity of wellness and others created by the pressure of the pandemic and its changes in workplaces. Millions of Americans either do not have access to traditional workplace benefits or such benefits do not provide sufficient coverage; individual resources and solutions are needed, the study says.
Employers, their agents, and insurers are working to fill those gaps, they say, by identifying an expanded roster of wellness benefits that are not tied so directly to workplaces. Agents are part of that development, guiding their clients to broad-based resources, says Seidner.
“Agents can start out by pointing out the value of expanding benefit programs beyond medical benefits and help employers manage their new programs,” he says. “They can help employers understand their whole population and their diverse needs and how they can be safe and productive with the latest benefits programs.”
Employers are shifting some of their traditional health benefits to remote delivery. Telehealth availability for medical advice is becoming common, but also telehealth delivery of behavioral care is increasingly available to remote workers.
At the same time, employers are offering new types of benefits, ranging from broad-based screenings to training that can improve overall health and reaction time to ergonomic worksite improvements. Standing desks, for example, are becoming popular to help employees improve their flexibility and mobility.
“There’s also lots of focus on sleep,” notes Seidner, “and providing opportunities for naps and recreation time.” With employees continuing to work from home, employers are looking for ways to subsidize childcare to free up work time for employees and relieve the stress of balancing work and life tasks.
Dijanira McClosky, head of Health and Well-being Benefits at Guardian Life, says employee expectations have changed and employees are anticipating new types of wellness. As a result, employers are trying to develop new types of benefits that reach out to employees and provide both physical and mental health benefits.
“The idea is that employers need to provide their employees with physical and mental well-being,” she says. “The challenge is how do we support employees and roll out some complementary benefits that extend beyond health claims and treatment.”
Employers, their agents, and insurers are spending more time listening to employees and trying to understand their needs, and then implementing new solutions that respond directly to the evolving needs of employees, she says. More paid time off has become popular she says, as employees continue to balance their work and home life where there are few barriers in the way they spend their time.
The newest benefits are also a mix of old- and new-style benefits, she adds. In addition to new delivery methods, employers are connecting with their agents and brokers to identify insured benefits that have more appeal than previously.
Supplemental health benefits, critical illness insurance and other employee-paid benefits are available from employers and can contribute to employee security as part of their wellness, she explains. “Utilization is key,” she says. “Many of these benefits have been available for some time, but employers need to promote them and get employees to actively engage.”
For more information:
Guardian Life
guardianlife.com
The Hartford
thehartford.com
The author
Len Strazewski is a Chicago-based writer, editor and educator specializing in marketing, management and technology topics. In addition to contributing to Rough Notes, he has written on insurance for Business Insurance, Risk & Insurance, the Chicago Tribune and Human Resource Executive, among other publications.
