Aon in August 2019 issued a white paper entitled Prevention is Better Than Cure, which addresses the growing awareness of employee wellbeing. The paper encourages employers to understand the business rationale behind employee wellbeing in order to help gain best outcomes.

The Aon white paper shows that 95% of employers see a correlation between employee health and performance, and believe they have a role in trying to educate and improve poor lifestyle behaviors. However, less than half are implementing a defined health strategy.

When coupled with factors such as an ageing population, multigenerational workforces and employees increasingly working into their later years due to lack of retirement savings, it is not surprising that focusing on wellbeing, improving behavioral health and preventing disease is an issue for governments and other health bodies, as well as employers.

Indeed, just over a quarter (26%) of employers say they focus on providing education, but only 8% have resource for detection. Employers are more focused when it comes to access to treatment (30%) or long-term support (30%), and there is a shift in focus in employers’ strategies, with 80% now looking to improve awareness and education.

The white paper explains how ignoring the outcomes of poor employee wellbeing creates challenges that link to poor health behaviors and chronic medical conditions. These manifest in different ways, including increased absenteeism and presenteeism, reduced productivity, increasing claim costs, poor financial wellbeing, and general disengagement.

This year’s Aon’s Benefits & Trends Survey highlighted the fact that few employers have a specific strategy in place to address conditions that affect their workforces. There is also a challenge to increase expenditure on the early stages of health issues to be in line with that spent on curing conditions.