Health and Wellbeing in the Workplace [Putting your Staff First]
Written by The Bodhi Tree Spa | 25th Oct 2022
How to Improve the Health and Wellbeing of Your Staff
Over recent years, we have seen a surge in workplace wellness apps. Many of these have some fantastic advantages and taking steps toward helping the mental and physical wellbeing of your workforce with the focus on mindfulness and meditation in particular. However, an app is, well just that, an app. It cannot replace the benefits from actual hands-on well-being therapies such a therapeutic massage
The Impact of Ignoring Staff Health and Wellbeing on Businesses
The research on work-related stress is staggering. Add the escalating hysteria surrounding COVID is further exacerbating stress-related illness and therefore
employees needing to take time off to deal with rising anxiety levels.
As an employer, it’s your duty to ensure the physical and mental well-being of your staff. Failing to do so can be a costly mistake, not only with the cost to the business due to sick days and a decrease in productivity but it in some instances, it can result in HR/Employment legal case which is extremely costly to the business, let alone time-consuming, a drain on the resource on your HR team, or the management team and company owners of small businesses, but if the employee wins, then the damage from negative publicity could be irreversible.
The rise in stress-related illness has become so prevalent, that there are Personal Injury law firms actively seeking clients to make claims against stress in the workplace. This is further substantiated by articles such as ‘Dealing with workplace stress – your legal rights’ making headlines in The Guardian. Though not easy to prove, it’s still something businesses and employers should be mindful of when it comes to the wellbeing of their workforce.
According to HSE, the 2019-2020 figures are staggering:
- 828,000 workplace illnesses due to stress, anxiety, and depression.
- This represents 2,440 per 100,000 workers
- Results in an estimated 17.9 million working days lost
- And accounted for 51% of all work-related ill health and 55% of all days lost due to work-related ill-health.
As a Business, these are Statistics for the Health, Your Staff’s Health is Something You can no Longer Afford to Ignore.
Surprisingly, the most affected are 25-34 year-old women.
The graph below shows stress-related illness can affect on the business of all sizes, though large companies do have to be most vigilant.
The general practitioner’s network (THOR-GP 2013-2015) identified an analysis of work-related mental ill-health cases by precipitating events. They concluded that workload pressures were the predominant factor, in agreement with the LFS, with interpersonal relationships at work and changes at work significant factors also.
If these statistics haven’t been enough to scare you, this doesn’t even include the data for Work-related musculoskeletal disorder (WRMSDs)!
- An estimated 6.9 million working days were lost due to WRMSDs, an average of 14 days lost for each case.
- WRMSDs represent 29% of all days lost due to work-related ill health in Great Britain in 2018/19.
- Within the total number of 6.9 million days lost due to WRMSDs, Work Related Upper Limb Disorder account for around 2.6m of days lost
- Back disorders around 2.8m of days lost
- Lower Limb disorders 1.5m days lost.
If the above statistics have piqued your interest, head to the full HSE article on our website for Stress, depression and Anxiety and Work Related Musculoskeletal Disorder.pdf
The Actual Cost of Staff Health and Wellbeing to your Business
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What Can you do to Protect the Health of your Staff and your Bottom Line?
It’s all sounding like doom and gloom isn’t it? It need not be. With the explosion of interest in personal well-being, mental health and self-care, there are some alternative practices which are getting front-page interest in the media. Think of them as the 3 Ms:
- Mindfulness
- Meditation
- Massage
A Google Trends search (1 & 5 years) shows that massage is by far the most preferred alternative therapy when if comes to managing stress levels. The only ‘blip’ was in March 2020 when the UK went into its 1st lockdown. However, despite the fear and uncertainty on the safety of close-contact services, such as massage, had a minimal impact on the public. The graph shows that massage steadily rose back to almost the same level as pre-lockdown. This may have been higher as the impact of the loss of income should also be considered in these figures.
Source: Google Trends Dec 2019 – Dec 2020
Source: Google Trends Nov2015 – Dec 2020
There are plenty of mindfulness and meditation apps available at low-cost points and often free. The research shows how helpful massage can be in reducing stress levels along with the positive thought of the employee if this is provided in their workplace. UK companies already offering their employees ‘desk’ or chair massage include:
According to the recruitment giant, Monster.com, the following 7 companies have epic wellness programs. Surprisingly, only Google offers chair-massage. / Glassdoor –
- Accenture
- SAS
- Untuit
- Asana
- Microsoft
- Draper
An article in the FT, ‘Wellness schemes benefit employers as well as staff’ Peter Simpson, chief executive of UK utility company Anglian Water, agrees. “Wellbeing is written into our business plan and our annual reporting,” he says. “It has become a strategic boardroom issue. Employees should be on the balance sheet in the same way as you account for cash. People think it’s a bolt-on, but we say this is part of our business strategy.” He recalls a two-day board meeting at which a full day focused on employee development and wellbeing.
Appendix 1 lists scientific and medical evident articles for the benefits of workplace massage dating from 1996 to the current day.
Research into the Positive Impact of Massage on Stress in the Workplace and How it Can Improve your Staff’s Health and Wellbeing
A study from the Neuropsychology lab of University of Konstanz, Germany has shown that 10 minutes of massage helps the body naturally reduce stress by boosting the Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS), the body’s principal engine for relaxation, in turn leading to a reduction in perceived mental stress.
The study was to test short interventions of 10 minutes on 60 females. All participants showed a significant increase in Heart Rate Variations (HRV), which demonstrates that the PNS, was activated by the massages, and additionally, that the body physiologically relaxes just by resting alone.
By increasing vagal and PNS activity, massage can help lower the body’s circulating levels of stress-related hormones like cortisol. It also significantly reduced the body’s circulating levels of a hormone called arginine vasopressin, which constricts blood vessels and induces high blood pressure.
That same study found massage led to a boost in levels of some immune system white blood cells — including those that help defend the body from cancer, infections, and viruses.
However, the physiological effect was more pronounced when participants received a massage. Researchers noted that it was not important whether the massage was soft or moderate, but that tactile contact in general seemed to improve the relaxation of the body.
There’s also evidence that massage can calm mental anguish. Research, funded by the National Institute of Health, has shown that massage not only reduces leg and back pain but also symptoms of depression and anxiety. How? By increasing the calming effect of the ‘feel-good hormones’, serotonin and dopamine.
The result; decreasing mental stress can help improve physical health. Thus, doubly beneficial to your employees health in only 10 minutes.
How Can we Help you Support your Staff’s Health and Reduce Stress Levels in the Workplace?
Apart from the proof of the effectiveness of massage, prevention is better than cure. Your employees can reap the benefits of massage therapy in just 10 minutes, though we advocate 20 minutes for improved results.
Not only will it relieve stress, ease out tension and knots caused from a seated position for a prolonged period, but the positive mental impact is enormous. What’s more, your staff will view you, their employer, in a positive light and a sense of loyalty to a business which understands, recognise and supports their mental and physical wellbeing.
The Benefits of an In-Office Massage Service Company
There are many freelance massage therapists passionate about the health values of the services they provide. The one downside is there is only one ‘freelancer’. A well-performed massage is exhausting and the therapist can tire quickly. In fact, we advocate our therapists don’t do more than 4-5 hours of massage per day. Having a team ensures that your employees won’t miss out when your massage therapist needs a holiday, is off sick or on holiday.
Having a team means you can have more than 1 massage therapist on-site, and therefore deliver more chair-massage treatments per hour. For more information on how we can help, visit our page on Workplace Wellbeing and In-office Massage.
Email us ay workplacewellbeing@bodhitreespa.co.uk to learn more on know how in-office massage can benefit your staff’s health and the profitability of your business.
