With employees spending longer in work than ever before, benefits connected to wellbeing become even more important. “Employers are thinking how they are going to manage without the default retirement age,” says Beate O’Neill, health and wellbeing senior consultant at Punter Southall. “They are looking at preventative wellbeing initiatives.”
According to the CIPD’s latest annual absence management survey, most organisations provide one or more wellbeing benefits to all staff: 65% offer access to counselling, 56% provide employee assistance programmes and about a third offer stop-smoking support, subsidised gym membership, health screening or advice on healthy eating.
According to the Simply Health white paper Good Health is Good Business, the most valued health benefits are time-related: flexible working, options to buy additional holiday time or policies offering leave of absence for personal issues. Other popular benefits are PMI, healthy eating options, gym and sports facilities and health case plans.
