Cleanzine: your weekly cleaning and hygiene industry newsletter 11th April 2024 Issue no. 1109
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Fewer than half of businesses believe they have a duty of care to employee health
Fewer than half of businesses believe they have a duty of care to employee health, according to a recently released report from a leading expert in leadership development, with only 46% of firms regarding staff health as an employer's responsibility. This is despite the fact that 82.8% of companies believe that business performance and staff wellbeing are connected.
The research, conducted by Morgan Redwood, is based on responses from the Heads of Human Resource departments or Board Director level from over 250 businesses. These have been drawn from across the UK and from a mix of sectors and a range of company sizes, with two thirds employing over 250 people, and none less than 50.
The statistic of 46% is in contrast to a previous Morgan Redwood study conducted in 2009, where 95% of businesses believed they did have a duty of care to the health of their employees.
"The latest findings really do indicate a startling shift in employer opinion," notes Janice Haddon, managing director of Morgan Redwood. "A swing from 95% to 46% is a huge difference. What has caused such a sea change? In 2014 the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development reported that 40% of employers are seeing a rise in stress-related absence and reported mental health problems, such as anxiety and depression, so the fact that companies are less inclined to see wellbeing as within their remit of responsibility is perplexing."
Of the respondents questioned in the study, 25.6% believed that business performance was 'very closely connected' to staff wellbeing, with a further 57.2% seeing them as 'quite connected'. Only 6.8% of the business leaders questioned regarded performance and wellbeing as 'not at all connected.'
The report also found that helping staff to achieve a better work-life balance was low on the list of human resources priorities, as it ranked joint tenth, with only 6% of those questioned seeing it as a key aspect of their HR strategy. Employee wellbeing featured even lower, with just 5.6% of businesses considering it to be a priority, putting it at twelfth on the list. 'Attracting better talent to the business' (39.2%) claimed the top spot, followed by 'reducing staff churn' (36.8%) and 'reducing staff costs' (34.8%) in second and third place respectively.
"With the majority of businesses seeing a connection between wellbeing and performance, why do so few place importance on fostering wellbeing?" asks Janice. "Surely the correlation between the two would give businesses the impetus to put measures in place to improve employee health?
"Is the rise in reported issues found by the CIPD down to a change in employer attitude? It would be tempting to blame an increasing belief that work-life integration is more appropriate than work-life balance, but our report findings indicate that a poor work-life balance is regarded as the most adverse impact on morale.
"Perhaps employers are putting recruitment ahead of the need to tend to existing employee needs, which means they've taken their eye off the wellbeing ball. Businesses need to remember that looking after employees is just as important as striving for new business and growth. Burnt out, poorly treated employees will end up becoming detrimental in the long run, so employers need to ensure they allocate sufficient resource to cater to the full spectrum of employee needs."
To obtain a free copy of Morgan Redwood's 'Wellbeing and Business Performance' Report, follow on Twitter or like the Facebook page.
13th August 2015