Employers’ warm words on health still not being backed by action

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The experience of the past two years of pandemic has convinced almost all employers (95%) that they now have a responsibility for looking after, supporting and promoting employee health and wellbeing – but there is little sign of this yet translating into concrete action or investment.
Aon’s Benefits & Trends Survey 2022 reported a significant increase in the past year in the number of employers who strongly agreed they had a responsibility for the health and wellbeing of their employees.
The figure had risen from just a fifth (20%) in 2021 to more than half of all respondents (51%) in 2022, it found. A further 44% agreed they had a responsibility but didn’t feel strongly about it, and just 5% disagreed or did not have a view.
However, whether this acceptance in principle is actually translating into hard cash investment in employee health and wellbeing remains more of an open question.
Only 44% of the 253 HR professionals polled said their organisation had a formalised health and wellbeing strategy, although 32% said they “planned” to have one within the next 12 to 18 months, a figure that had remained unchanged from last year.
Additionally, 70% admitted they did not have a dedicated budget for a health and wellbeing programme, just 8% measured the return on investment of their health and wellbeing programmes, and fewer than half (46%) had an executive sponsor for their health and wellbeing strategy.
Drilling down into the details of the survey, of those employers that did have a formal wellbeing strategy, all (100%) offered dedicated support for emotional and mental wellbeing.