The tool will help employers quantify the costs of illness to their business and the financial benefits of wellness programmes.  It will also help assess the business case for investing in employee wellness programmes, and lead to better, informed decision-making regarding wellness initiatives.

The tool, ‘Business HealthCheck’, has been developed in response to Dame Carol Black’s review of the health of Britain’s working age population, ’Working for a healthier tomorrow’. The ability to definitively measure a business’ investment in their employees’ health and wellbeing will catalyse debate on the subject, and transform it into a boardroom agenda item. BITC intends to use this tool as part of its wider health promotion campaign.

“To date, the business view on health and wellbeing has been mostly narrow and a subject for compliance,” says Louise Aston, BITC Campaign Director. “But opinion is changing. We are now working with UK businesses using quantitative tools, such as the one developed by PricewaterhouseCoopers, to show the potential ROI of investing in programmes which reduce absence, boost productivity and help retain and motivate talent. A number of our members are currently trialling the tool which will be further developed over the next three months, and we hope will deliver real value to the business community.”

BITC is working with businesses of all sizes to develop a health and wellbeing strategy, that will deliver clear benefits in an economic climate where the burdens of absence and lost productivity are ever more keenly felt. In addition to sharing best practice and offering strategic advice, the health campaign will offer participants practical ways to evaluate and enhance their current health and wellbeing programmes.

Simon Leary Managing Partner for PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Health Research Institute in Europe, Middle East and Africa, said:

“PricewaterhouseCoopers has invested heavily in recent years in the area of wellness in the UK workplace, both internally and as part of the work of our health research agenda.  The Business HealthCheck tool is a major step towards the goal of building a genuine partnership between employers and their workforces to promote health and wellbeing at work. Practically, the tool will enable employers to understand better the effects of workplace wellness programmes on intermediate and long term business outcomes, based on current evidence and case studies.  Coupled with a dashboard of financial outcomes and indicators, the tool will allow employers to monitor the overall success of their wellness initiatives.”

There is currently a real focus on this topic with the combination of Dame Black’s review asking businesses to move beyond the traditional health and safety agenda, and Lord Darzi’s review of the NHS out on the 30th June. As an organisation that represents a significant part of UK business, BITC is well positioned to drive the agenda forward with the aim of getting 75 percent of the FTSE 100 to embed health and wellbeing at the core of business strategy and to introduce boardroom reporting on the topic by 2011.

Dame Carol Black, National Director for Health and Work, welcomed the launch of the toolkit and urged businesses of all sizes to get involved in the pilot.

“It was clear from my review that there is a compelling business case for investing in employees’ health. Many organisations have already recognised how important it can be to their bottom line by improving employee wellbeing and productivity and reducing sickness absence and staff turnover.

But it’s also clear that if we are to make health and wellbeing an issue for financial directors and CEOs, not just HR directors, we need to go further. Organisations need to be able to measure the impact of their wellness programmes and also be able to identify costs if they fail to manage health conditions or promote good health in the workplace.”

Register and download your trial of Business HealthCheck