A Presentation on why workplace health initiatives are important, presented to the Hertfordshire Workplace Wellbeing Conference 2015

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Workplace Health :
Building the business case
Jim McManus, Director of Public Health
Hertfordshire Annual Workplace
Wellbeing Event 2015

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Covering
• Health inequalities in Hertfordshire and the
impact on workplaces.
• Why a Public Health Workplace Wellbeing
Offer?
• The cost of employee ill-health on workplace
productivity.

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Outcomes?

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What are we doing?
• Our 50 employers...
• Hertfordshire County Council, RMG Networks, Zenith Hygiene group, The
Altro Group, Bedford Borough Public Health, Cherry Tree Housing
Association, Healthwatch Hertfordshire, Herts Community Meals,
Hertfordshire Constabulary, Hertfordshire Partnership University
Foundation Trust, Herts Valleys CCG, NGK Spark Plugs, NHS East &
North Herts CCG, Roche Products Limited, Rothamsted Research,
Stevenage Borough Council, Tesco, Warner Brothers, Watford Borough
Council and Three Rivers District Council, Welwyn & Hatfield Borough
Council, UK Power Networks, North Herts District Council, Affinity Water,
Healthwatch Hertfordshire, Morrisons Utilities, Pitney Bowes, Poplar
Harca, JCA Group, Babcock International and Machins Solicitors.

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What’s happened?
• 257 Trained mental health workplace reps
• Mental health training take up – piloted the 2 day MHFA course at
full capacity
• Workplace champions growth and success of the Champions
networking forum
• Mini MOTS slow starters but proving popular - 234 employees
participated from April 2014 to February 2015
• Newly launched Employers Ambassadors Group – 14 business
leaders participating
• Targets exceeded for contract with a real momentum building

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And...
• In Hertfordshire, 165 Workplace Health
Champions from 30 different workplaces were
trained between October 2013 and January
2015.
• At the end of January 2015, 119 (72 per cent) of
the trained Workplace Health Champions were
still active.

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Why....
• We want more productive business and more
healthy workers. Everyone wins!
• A workplace of healthy people is more
productive and safer. Simple as that
• Now let me convince you...

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Health Inequalities in Herts
• Differs by area
• Accumulation of Mental Ill Health
• Accumulation of Avoidable CVD, Diabetes,
Cancer Risk
• Disproportionate Smoking
• Under 25 Road Traffic Accidents

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The Problem for Employers
• 2/3 of sickness absence avoidable
– Smoking related ill health
– Musculoskeletal ill-health
– Mental health and stress related
– Increasing risk of preventable disability in
employees with age
– The more risks you have, the more illness
you have (multiplicative effect)

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It’s costing you
• Sickness absence
• Productivity
Established relationship between lifestyle
related risk factors (smoking, inactivity, obesity)
and productivity absenteeism and health claims.
• (Buron et al,2005, Wellsource, 2006 & University of Michigan, 2006)

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Example - smoking
• £58 m annual cost in smoking breaks
• £50.8m annual cost in sickness absence
• 1500 deaths a year in working age adults
• Smokers 5 times as likely as non smokers to have
sickness absence EVERY year from ‘flu and chest
infections
GETTING THEM TO QUIT NEEDNT COST YOU A PENNY

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And Hertfordshire shows the same pattern!

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And Hertfordshire shows the same pattern!
The new retirement age. 2/3 of population will be
in disability by Retirement age

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Dementia
0
2,000
4,000
6,000
8,000
10,000
12,000
14,000
16,000
18,000
2012 2014 2016 2018 2020
Numberofpeople
Year
People aged 65 and over predicted to have dementia, by
age, projected to 2020, Hertfordshire
90+
85-89
80-84
75-79
70-74
65-69
Source: www.poppi.org.uk

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Dementia -projections
0
2,000
4,000
6,000
8,000
10,000
12,000
14,000
16,000
18,000
2012 2014 2016 2018 2020
Numberofpeople
Year
People aged 65 and over predicted to have dementia, by
age, projected to 2020, Hertfordshire
90+
85-89
80-84
75-79
70-74
65-69
Source: www.poppi.org.uk

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Premature death in Hertfordshire
• The causes of premature mortality can be
grouped into four main conditions which account
for around 80% of premature deaths. These are:
• cancer
• heart disease and stroke
• lung disease
• liver disease

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Mental Health
• Biggest single cause of sickness absence
• Mostly avoidable or remediable at early stages
• Significant cause of ET claims and workplace
disputes
• Area most employers feel least prepared for
• 1 in 4 of population have in lifetime
• 1 in 3 of workforce report sickness absence
around it

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What is the root issue?
• There is a flow from low risk to high risk to
disease for the working age population
• This leads to:
• Diseases of lifestyle
• More risk, more absence
• Compound risk, compound absence
• Low productivity

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Productivity Decreases with Number of Health Risks
Excess
Productivity
Loss
Productivity
Loss (%)
Base Cost
Number of Health Risks
(Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine 2005;47:769-77 (n = 28,375))

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Absenteeism Increases with Number of Health Risks
Number of Health Risks
(Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine 2005;47:769-77 (n = 28,375))
Base work
loss days/yr
Excess
Work Loss
days/yr
work loss
days/yr

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What can be done
• An effective Workplace Wellness strategy is to
stop migration of people to higher risk and keep
low risk people at low risk.
• Champions recruiting other businesses and
employers

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The Herts Approach
• The Workplace Offer
• Amassadors Group
• About self-interest

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Thank you
Jim.mcmanus@hertfordshire.gov.uk