The recent proliferation of wellbeing options has given employers more data than ever before to shed light on their employees’ wellbeing needs – which are not always in line with what employers assume.
According to research results produced by Legal & General last September, 93 per cent of SME employers thought they were doing good job in the wellbeing area, but only 70 per cent of staff agreed.
Some workforces can have contrasting overall requirements. A corporate lawyer, for example, may be primarily concerned with mental health, whereas a construction company may be more worried about musculoskeletal problems. But, even within the same organisation, different types of employees can have very different needs.
Sandra Ordel, chartered occupational psychologist at wellbeing consultants The Wellbeing Project, says: “What works for one employee doesn’t necessarily work for another, so you need to take into account different life stages and personality preferences as well as factors like neurodiversity and external responsibilities such as parenting and caring for family members.
“Offering gym membership may not be as appealing to parents of young children as flexible working, onsite childcare and EAP resources that can help with juggling work and family responsibilities. And people may appreciate different interest groups and social events. So, you must listen to employees to understand what matters, and data gathering is key.
“But, if you’re measuring wellbeing and resilience, it must be robust data that’s scientific and valid” she continues. “You can use psychometric data, pulse surveys, engagement surveys and internal data about absenteeism and EAP utilisation. This can all then be integrated to help inform the wellbeing strategy.”
Intermediary driven
All these data sources are now highly relevant to modern-day group risk intermediaries, who tend to be just as involved with helping clients integrate and interpret them as they are with broking core covers. But they have significantly less connection with group risk insurers.
The actual group risk products gather some minimal anonymised cover-costing data around gender, age, salary location and job type. This doesn’t tell the employer – which it is gathered from in the first place – anything about wellbeing.
Steve Herbert, wellbeing & benefits director at Partners&, says: “Most group risk products offer very limited data collection points outside of the standard renewal data requirements. The exceptions are the likes of YuLife, where wellbeing apps and additional services provide multiple data points for both the insurer and the employer to potentially consider.
“So, employers and the wider group risk industry probably also need to consider other data from offerings outside of group risk to really inform their wellbeing plans.”
Nick Homer, head of market management, corporate risk at Zurich, doesn’t disagree. He points out that Zurich has in-depth meetings with larger customers in which it can provide insights through granular analysis of claims experience, but he acknowledges that even added-value benefits have their data limitations.
He says: “We have access to the overall data from virtual GP services, but we don’t share this specifically with employers. Even with EAPs, for which we can provide quite detailed monthly reports to employers that include criteria like the reasons for people engaging and counselling outcomes, we can’t give them any profiling of their workforce because engagement is confidential.”
Parallel services
The insurers able to assist most with employee wellbeing data therefore tend to be those that enable group risk clients to access separate additional services. Legal & General, for example, offers group income protection clients with over 100 lives the Fruitful Insights tool. (see below below)
Health and wellbeing apps such as Unum’s Help@hand and AIG Life’s Smart Health also add an extra data dimension but, even with these, confidentiality issues still need to be addressed.
Chris Morgan, head of group protection distribution at AIG Life, says: “We can go into employers with management information based on Smart Health engagement and present that data to show how and when the service is being used, highlighting areas where staff are not using it. But the data can only show so much, and we can’t provide information on location because the confidentiality aspect prevents us from saying where staff are based.
“So, it’s currently hard to differentiate between different employees’ challenges, but we intend to develop the depth of our reporting capability over time, whilst being mindful of confidentiality.”
Unum stresses that the relaunch of Help@hand this month will increase the data insights it can provide to employers with over 50 users.
Glenn Thompson, chief distribution officer at Unum, says: “Now everything is in one place and we can look at more data through digital health and wellbeing services. All data is anonymised and we get monthly reports, which we feed back to employers on request. Employers are telling us that data is definitely helping them to work out different employee requirements.”
But, even for the very best potential sources of data, effective communication is key because you only get good management information from serious usage volumes.
David Williams, head of group risk at Towergate Health & Protection, says: “Benefits and services need to be extremely visible for employees and, even within our own company, some people forget they can access them, and so suffer in silence. So, to promote usage, include targeted messages to the demographic that might need it most, such as posters in canteens for blue collar workers and emails for white collar workers.”
BOX: GAINING FRUITFUL INSIGHTS
Since May 2022 Legal & General has been working with Fruitful Insights, a data and analytics business that quantifies the impact of wellbeing on workforce productivity, taking account of all aspects of the employer’s investment in workplace wellbeing and correlating this with the employee’s view – including a range of current topical considerations.
The tool is available to Legal & General group income protection clients with over 100 lives, helping them to shift the wellbeing conversation to something that’s evidence based. Intermediaries can use the data to discuss with employers what steps to take.
Colin Fitzgerald, distribution director, group protection at Legal & General, says: “Fruitful Insights brings the different results from different divisions, locations and categories of staff together and enables these to be analysed. Questions could be as broad as attitudes towards homeworking and work/life balance and about how they understand benefits and how they feel about them.”
BOX: HELP@HAND RELAUNCHES
On April 3rd 2023 Unum relaunched its Help@hand app, provided in conjunction with Square Health, to give employees and eligible family members a total health and wellbeing solution. It will continue to offer access to existing features like remote GPs, physiotherapy and medical second opinions, but will also include:
- Unlimited mental health support, including bereavement counselling
- ‘360 Wellbeing Scores’ created by completing four short assessments to offer users insights on their mental, physical, social and financial wellbeing. The score unlocks personalised
lifestyle coaching for guidance on making meaningful changes to
enhance their wellbeing - 1-to-1 nutritional support and personal training programmes with experts
- A fully integrated EAP, provided by Square Health
- A 24/7 helpline for emotional and practical support
- Financial and legal support
- Savings and discounts to support everyday living costs
- An uninsured offering that extends certain Help@hand services to those not covered by a Unum Group Risk policy
Significantly, employers can also request a report on key health and wellbeing data and insights based on employees’ use of the full suite of services.
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