Running Head: SAFETY, HEALTH AND WELLNESS 1

Safety, Health, and Wellness

Author’s Name

Institutional Affiliation

Instructor

Date
SAFETY, HEALTH AND WELLNESS 2

7.2 Employee Health and Wellness

mental and physical health of its employees. It also entails reducing the dangers to employee’s

health and wellbeing through the provision of healthy work environments, safe work activities,

and responsible hosting of company events. Employee wellness focuses on assisting employees

to impact their health, value of life, physical and mental welfare, and performances at work. It

also actively encourages and promotes healthier attitudes and lifestyles amongst employees to

promote them and their work culture. Additionally, it broadly covers health promotion and the

avoidance of ill health, plus the factors that assist in determining how healthy someone is,

equally in body and mind. Subsequently, it is about supporting people to make healthier choices

and take control of their wellbeing for their benefit (Jones et al., 2019).

Employee wellness is an important issue for any business organization as it enhances

growth, strength, sustainability, and stability. Studies show that healthy employees provide

optimal work which increases workplace productivity and they in turn avoid losses that their

employer might have suffered had they offered low-quality work. It is therefore evident that

employees who engage themselves with health and wellness programs in workplaces tend to

save their employers money. The two employee wellness programs include Lifestyle and disease

management. Lifestyle focuses on general lifestyle changes, diet, and exercise. These programs

assist employees in developing healthier behaviors and thus decrease absenteeism and increase

productivity. Mostly, employee wellness impacts organizational culture, resources, productivity,

and bottom-line. Organizations are able to obtain, attract, and retain fresh talent that will ensure

the future success and growth when they care for the wellbeing of their employees (Mattke et al.,

2013).
SAFETY, HEALTH AND WELLNESS 3

Implementing wellbeing programs is one of how companies that enable employees to

develop and maintain healthy cultures, lifestyles, and behaviors, which reduces health risks and

hence a reduced overall health cost (Kunte, 2016). Benefits that come with offering wellbeing

programs include Increasing productivity, employees tend to be perfectly committed when they

are healthy such that they offer great services and work at their optimum. This in turn increases

productivity in the company. Reduced health costs. The money that the company spends while

ensuring the health of their employees is reduced because wellbeing programs help them in

adopting and maintaining healthy practices that preserve their good health by reducing

preeminent health risks. Absenteeism is also reduced when employees are healthy. They tend to

participate actively in the daily happenings of the company because they are vibrant.

Employee recruitment and retention are also improved when wellbeing programs are

enhanced in an organization. Employees stay where they are treated well and cared for in that all

their needs, health, and wellness are observed and valued. Applicants to such organizations are

also high because of the good reputation of the company and from the workers. High employee

morale is also built, enhanced, and maintained. Healthy employees are very happy, a factor that

enhances their morale. Immediately they start engaging and communicating with each other, they

automatically feel appreciated and valued. A result of well-being exchange programs. Research

proves that clients work well because of the healthy changes in their worksite culture.

Some of the things employees need to feel healthier include a Comfortable workplace

environment. When employees get exposed to good working environments, they feel cared for

and that improves their health. Good relationships with their managers, colleagues, and support

staff. Healthy relationships make employees look forward to going to work which is good for the

stability of organizational supports. Having somewhere to turn to when they experience

problems helps them to ease the stress experienced by work. Having control of their jobs makes

employees powerful in that they feel like they have the decisions in matters concerning their

work and that their decisions matter. Having individual health practices enable employees to

regulate their habits. They find other ways of dealing with stress instead of using drugs like

alcohol. Focus on having healthy work environments eliminates sources of stress and health risks

for employees (McCleary et al., 2017).

Ways in which a company can help its workers to promote wellness and health include:

By involving employees in establishing the policies that concern workplace wellbeing and

general workplace. When they are involved in these policy making, they tend to follow the rules

to the latter to maintain a healthy working environment hence good health. By educating the

employees and providing awareness about healthy practices at workplaces. By promoting

employee participation in organizational matters to make them active and to increase their

working morale. When they identify problems with their working environment and they are

actively involved in finding the solution, they usually feel motivated. Providing resources and

support to employees reduce their levels of stress and uplift their work spirits which enhance

their good health (Bettencourt, 2018).

Generally, the addition of value to employees arises from their commitment to the

company. Setting values and cultures that mentally and physically support employees is

important while receiving exceptional work from them. This can be done through the

engagement of employees as well as paying for their upskill and by implementing health

schemes. Applying effective employee health and wellbeing projects help in strengthening the

company's bottom line, improving the overall employee commitment, and fewer turnovers. The

health and happiness of employees matter since providing value is the main aim of any business
SAFETY, HEALTH AND WELLNESS 5

organization. Employee’s wellbeing should be looked into and maintained by their employers to

enhance healthy working environments and productivity in companies plus healthy relations.
SAFETY, HEALTH AND WELLNESS 6

Reference
Bettencourt, C. (2018). Best Practices for Implementing Health Coaching into an Employee

Health and Wellness Program.

Jones, D., Molitor, D., & Reif, J. (2019). What do workplace wellness programs do? Evidence

from the Illinois workplace wellness study. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 134(4),

1747-1791.

Kunte, M. (2016). Employee wellness practices: A study in selected organizations. SIES Journal

of Management, 12(1), 9-14.

Mattke, S., Liu, H., Caloyeras, J., Huang, C. Y., Van Busum, K. R., Khodyakov, D., & Shier, V.

(2013). Workplace wellness programs study. Rand health quarterly, 3(2).

McCleary, K., Goetzel, R. Z., Roemer, E. C., Berko, J., Kent, K., & De La Torre, H. (2017).

Employer and employee opinions about workplace health promotion (wellness)

programs: results of the 2015 Harris Poll Nielsen Survey. Journal of occupational and

environmental medicine, 59(3), 256-263.