It has long been a point of discussion. Just how important is staff health and wellness on the overall performance of an organisation.

A recent report sheds some light on this by identifing a direct link between staff health and organisational performance. Right Management’s Wellness & Productivity Management Study looked at 28,000 employees across 15 countries; the results shows that organisations that managed health well, increased performance by 2.5 times.

Those organisations that managed staff health poorly were 3.5 times less profitable. Now that is a big difference and directly highlights the financial impact of staff health.

Of concern, was that 51% of Australian workers felt that their employers promoted good staff health. This means almost half of all employers can improved initiatives to improve staff health and ultimately improve company profits.

This report concludes that staff health and wellness must now be a priority for organisations. It is no longer just a feel good way of keeping staff happy; it now has a direct impact on productivity, creativity, and the bottom line.

FitSense Australia has recently have a lot of interest in the provision of mini health assessments to employees. In the past we have been reluctant to provide these and we have not considered them comprehensive enough to optimally benefit participants. However, based on our experiences this year we now feel that mini health assessments are a great way of creating health awareness for employees.

Mini health assessments are 10 to 15 minutes in length and cover key health characteristics such as body composition, BP, cholesterol levels and diabetes risk. The beauty of the mini health assessment is that it is a cheap and effective way of creating awareness for a large number of staff. It can be delivered in a private room as per standard assessment, but it can also be delivered as part of the health expo.

But this reason it is now something that FitSense Australia recommends to organisations interested in offering a health check but without the time or financial resources to do something more thorough.

Body composition is a key health risk factor, and one that is considered modifiable as it can be improved by exercise and diet. For this reason, FitSense Australia includes it in all of our health assessment services, from the 10 minute mini assessment right through to a thorough one-hour assessment.

Several years ago the focus was on the importance of body mass index (BMI) which provides a ratio of weight to height to determine whether an individual is of healthy weight. Over the last couple of years this emphasis has changed, with research suggesting that waist circumference is one of the most effective indicators of heart disease.

This has also been the focus of the government’s Measure Up program, which is aimed at promoting healthy eating and physical activity among the adult population.

Interestingly, waist circumference is a good predictor of heart disease, even in individuals within a healthy weight range according to BMI. While it is obviously important to maintain a healthy weight, it appears that waist circumference is even more important.

While this may sound complicated, it can be simplified by saying that a reduction in overall body weight will result in both reduced BMI and reduced waist circumference.

As an interesting follow-up to my previous post about FitSense Australia’s recent release of a health and wellness program specifically for small businesses, the recent issue of the American Journal of Health Promotion included an article on just this topic.

The article stated that small businesses face many of the same staff health issues as their larger counterparts, however they did have a number of advantages. The article suggested that the success of wellness programs in small businesses is greater. This is likely to be as a result of increased participation rates, supportive management, employee involvement and greater communication between employees.

So if you are a small business looking to improve the health of your staff then it is likely that you will get good bang for your buck with a wellness program.