Changing the conversation from wellness to total wellbeing

By Claire Thayer, November 10, 2016

This week, Robin Bouvier from Aon’s Health Transformation Team, spoke in a HealthcareWebSummit webinar, co-sponsored by WebMD Health Services, on More than Meets the ROI: The Value of Investing in a Healthy Workforce.   Today’s forward thinking companies are moving towards a culture of health and changing the conversation about employee wellness from a ‘benefit’ to instead looking at health as a business imperative that’s integrated across all aspects of the organization.

Robin shares some perspective on general health of the workforce and somewhat surprisingly, the younger generations are not necessarily healthier:

	Baby Boomers (1946-1964)	Generation X (1965 -1978)	Millennials (1979-1996)
Tobacco Use	18%	21.1%	26.5%
Obesity	33.3%	32.8%	30.9%
Depression	16%	16%	20%
Debt	$29,317	$30,039	$23,332

Robin tells us that wellness is evolving to an all encompassing, total wellbeing approach: “Wellbeing means having the appropriate resources, opportunities and commitment needed to achieve optimal function, health and performance for the individual and the organization.” Total wellbeing interconnects:

• Emotional – attitudes and everyday living

• Physical – energy to complete daily living tasks

• Financial – confidently manage everyday and future finances

• Social – connections to others

Robin cited recent study findings of the impact of total wellbeing:

• 81% less like to seek out new employer in next year

• 41% less work missed because of poor health

• 69% of consumers say wellbeing programs health them get or stay healthy

• 22% more profitable as organizations

• 10% higher customer ratings

• ½ point higher performance rating by supervisor

From the new Aon Hewitt 2016 Financial Mindset Study, Robin identifies employee needs by financial stage as:

• Security: 30%

• Foundation: 25%

• Growth: 36%

• Freedom: 9%