Business Issue
According to the management records, it has been observed in the past few months that there has been a substantial increase in the sickness absenteeism. The management also perceives that the sickness leaves are higher in Bradley Hotel and Conference Centre as compared to other organizations in the same industry. The arising issue is not apparently very logical to link with job dissatisfaction, as our organization divides and distributes tasks according to the working capacity of the individuals. However, there is a dire need to adopt different measures to reduce and monitor the sickness absenteeism.
It is proposed that significant steps need to be taken to control sickness level. In this report, the method of control suggested is wellness program. The purpose of wellness program is to tackle the risk factors related health behaviors for example employees are encouraged to adopt a low calorie and low fat diet food to lower sickness. Promotions related to prevention of sickness and lifestyle management are offered under the program referred as workplace wellness, from single interventions to multi-component programs, benefits directly offered by the employers, by a vendor, plans of health group or a combination of both. To support the authenticity of the report, literature study was also incorporated to highlight what is sickness absenteeism, what are the possible reasons of it? And what organizational factors will help in reducing the sickness absenteeism.
Statistics
Sick Leave Record of Bradley Hotel and Conference Centre (2012-13)
In the past two years, a significant increase in the sick leave has been witnessed in the front end and house keeping department. The reasons reported the staff is majorly unhealthy lifestyle for instance poor nutrition, frequent consumption of alcohol, tobacco use, and inactivity, due to these issues, there has increase in chronic disease prevalence for instance chronic pulmonary conditions, diabetes, and heart disease. From the above statistics, it has been observed that more staff is prone to carrying the burden of these chronic diseases; which reduces the quality of life, leading to disability and premature death, along with an increase in cost of healthcare. Most staff availing sick leave is not limited to the older age groups, due to increase in the economic burden; these chronic diseases are now shifting towards Canadian’s at working age. It is because ineffective lifestyle management that loss of productivity has been witness at work (absenteeism) and while at work, the performance has been significantly reduced (presenteeism) (Mello, and Rosenthal, 2008). The same is evident from the table above; there has been a drastic increase in the sick leave during the year 2013 in different departments.
During this era, the main concerns are the impact of these diseases on the wellbeing and health of an employee. Many employers are introducing lifestyle strategies and health promotions that are commonly known as workplace wellness program. These programs related to a healthy lifestyle are created to prevent the sickness at the beginning (primary prevention) or reducing the complication by diagnosing and treating severe sickness at an early stage (secondary prevention) (Tu and Mayrell, 2010). In today’s organization absenteeism is considered to one of the major behavioral problems. There are billions of dollars at stake due to the operational cost linked with the lost time of absent employees. It has been estimated that per year sickness benefits cost about $15 billion and the GNP of a country can raise up to $10 billion if absenteeism is decreased only by a day in a year. Regardless of these figures the problem is still the same, in fact it is getting worst by the passage of time. The main cause of absenteeism is reported to be job dissatisfaction, alcoholism, home problems, and sickness (James, 2012).
There are several individual factors associated with absenteeism, such as education, previous history of absence, drug abuse, alcoholism, and personality. Overall, the biggest single factor linked to the sickness absenteeism of Bradley Hotel and Conference Centre records is an actual incapability of attending work due to injury or illness. In the research based on influence of absenteeism majorly health status was a third important reason. There are also non-medical determinants present in the support hypothesis of sick leave. Illness and sickness are discussed seldomly at most of the workplace models, yet they are reported majorly and provided as a legitimate reason for its repeated occurrence (Tu and Mayrell, 2010). Most of the factors that are commonly present in the society and open for intervention at workplace along with public places. For instance to promote mutual benefit of the employees and employer, there are public service messages related to health displayed regarding alcohol, cigaret, diabetes, and drugs. Hence, leave related to illness at workplace might be considered unfairly unavoidable from medical and workplace perspective (Herman, 2006).
Percentage of Employers Encouraging Employee Participation in Wellness Programs
Research Outcome
Employer at present are constantly working on promotions and initiative to even offer complex wellness programs. These programs include a number of activities like identification of possible health risks and reducing risks through interventions by promoting healthy lifestyle. Most of the wellness programs are developed by combining the activities of interventions and screening. These programs can be initiated by the employee themselves or through a vendor and incorporated in group health plans of the employees (Barham and West, 2011).
The activities involved in screening of sickness are risk factors (example: body weight), health related behavior determined through self administered questionnaires, and Health Risk Assessment (HRAs), and also include collection of biometric data (for example blood glucose, blood pressure, height, and weight level). There are several regulations and laws at the state and federal level that impose a certain requirement on the utilization of financial incentives in a particular type of wellness programs. In order to satisfy health related standard, certain employment based wellness programs are referred the Affordable Care Act and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) are established to provide a reasonable alternative to the standard wellness programs (111th Congress, 2010).
Effective Strategy of Communication
It is necessary to adopt strategies to communicate the information of wellness program to the employees either through detailed email or face to face interactions. Many employers have highlighted the importance of clear messaging and broad outreach related to successful implementation of the wellness program.
Opportunity for Employee Engagement
It has been reported by the employers that strategies to raise the level of engagement among the employees need to be formulated for easily accessible and convenient wellness program, activities for all employees. In case there are issues like rigid work schedules and wait times among employees, there should be reservation method adopted.
Leadership Engagement at All Levels
The implementation of a wellness program can be a success if the senior managements are required to give it priority as an organizational need and implement it as a culture. Direct supervisors should be involved in the process, and they should create excitement among the employees.
Using Existing Relationships and Resources
Utilizing the current resources for implementation of wellbeing programs and building relationships with the planned health plans to provide more benefits at little cost (Mello, and Rosenthal, 2008).
Continuous Evaluation
There should be an attitude of continuous improvement in the approach to wellness. A proper evaluation and follow up of an employee wellness information can help in improving the health of employees. It will also help in improving the future planning and setting goal for the wellness programs. The assessment of resource need will also be easily evaluated through wellness needs identification (Tu and Mayrell, 2010).
Conclusion
It evident from the report that the front end and house keeping staff has an increasing trend of sickness leave. This reports aims to highlight that wellness programs have now became a common benefit sponsored by the employees, it is now provided by almost all the major organizations with employee strength fifty and above. As compared to smaller organizations, health wellness programs are common in larger organizations and they offer these programs with variety of options. Most of the employees are turning towards companies that offer better benefits. Hence, turnover rate of employees in the hospitality industry is comparatively higher compared to any other industry at present. Hiring of employees is a continuous process in a hotel business from management team and salaried individuals, to hourly employees every position has high turnover ratio. The severity of the issue varies from one hotel to another. Most of the hotel establishments have started taking corrective measures to retain the employees, this provides them an advantage of less money and time spent on hiring and training of a new employee. Bradley Hotel and Conference Centre has been investing time and money on innovative trainings and learning of its employees from time to time. A higher employee turnover rate is a significant loss for the company.
Bradley Hotel and Conference Centre has committed itself to providing quality healthcare to employees, it can introduce long term support by incorporating health wellness programs and considering them as an important part of healthcare cost strategy. This helps them in ensuring that health coverage is provided at an affordable cost. In a previous report, the issue that has been reported continuously is that there is rare and no formal evaluation designed of the wellness program.
Adoptable Programs
It is evident that through lifestyle management programs associated with the workplace environment and wellness can cause a reduction in risk factor,and an increase in health behaviors like exercise. The effects of healthy lifestyle are clinically meaningful and easy to maintain overtime. It is the most important factor, as emerges as confirmation to control the increasing epidemic of lifestyle sickness through workplace wellness programs, which is the main reason premature mortality and morbidity. The implementation of wellbeing program can help in following ways:
A clear picture of the benefits that can be offered in our organization for the employees comprises of four important components of strategy for wellness:
- Wellness Program includes:
- Screening Activities: for instance clinical screening and Health Risk Assessments (HRAs). For example; blood pressure measurement.
- Preventive Interventions; it is based on management of lifestyle and diseases to address risk related to health and stop exacerbation. For example, smoking and diabetes.
- Health Promotion Benefits; providing healthy food options and on site vaccinations that are easily available to all the employees regardless of health risk that exists.
- Encourage healthy behavior and bring changes in benefit design
- Health Coverage based incentives for example; difference in the share of premium of employees’ health plan according to their smoking habits.
- Employer offering direct incentives for example; fitness program participants get cash payments.
- Other wellbeing and health related benefits for instance EAPS.
- Changes in Structure: making changes on the worksite to enhance healthy behavior for instance installing walkways to promote walking at campus.
- Changes in Context: changes in the corporate policies and culture to promote the wellness program and organize leadership support (Mello, and Rosenthal, 2008).
Many employers have reported that the impact of wellness programs on cost of healthcare is lower. This approach has been estimated by determining only the isolated impact of lifestyle management, most of the literature and research covers the overall effect on the employer’s investment on wellness and healthcare. There has been no significant reduction in cost reported in the use of healthcare and emergency department, but the trends related to high cost care and healthcare cost for program attendants and non attendants divides by passage of time. It is believed that there is a reason present regarding reduction in direct medical cost, if employees continued to participate in the wellness programs. In case, there is less access available to information regarding the program cost, it will not be easy to estimate the program effect on the direct coverage of overall cost but it can be anticipated by recently published literature that after five years the cost would become neutral of the wellness programs (Mello, and Rosenthal, 2008).
Summary
Reference
Barham, K., S. West, et al. (2011). "Diabetes prevention and control in the workplace: a pilot project for county employees." J Public Health Manag Pract 17(3): 233–241.
Federal Register (2012). Incentives for Nondiscriminatory Wellness Programs in Group Health Plans. Washington, D.C. Proposed Rule: 77 Fed. Reg, 70620–70642
Herman, C. W., S. Musich, et al. (2006). "Effectiveness of an incentive--‐based online physical activity intervention on employee health status." Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine/American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine 48(9): 889–895.
James, J. (2012). "Health Policy Brief: Workplace Wellness Programs." Health Affairs.
Mello, M. M., and M. B. Rosenthal (2008). "Wellness programs and lifestyle discrimination–the legal limits." The New England Journal of Medicine 359(2): 192–199.
Tu, H., and R. Mayrell (2010). Employer Wellness Initiatives Grow, but Effectiveness Varies Widely: National Institute for Health Care Reform.
