Editor’s Note

If you feel like work is eating away your life, you’re not alone! From answering emails remotely to attending meetings even while vacationing, today’s modern workplaces make it easier to work extra hours and continue to stay connected to your work even after you’ve left the office. Are businesses aware of the negative consequences of working longer hours? How does it affect employee health, and, in turn, impact productivity?

 

Long working hours take a toll on employees’ health, and affect staff turnover, absenteeism, and productivity. This month’s cover article, Work Until You Drop: How The Long-Hours Culture Is Killing Us by Sat Sindhar, helps examine the real-life effects of non-stop work culture and offer tips to find ways to address this issue before it kills us.
 
Did you know that the world’s 3.4 billion workers are unwell? According to the 2016 Global Wellness Institute survey, around 76 percent report, they’re struggling or suffering from health issues. Around 52 percent are overweight. Roughly one billion suffer from anxiety and one in four experience mental disorders. Read Jamie True’s article, Building The Four Pillars Of Total Wellbeing, to understand why it is important to go beyond to support employees’ physical, mental, social and financial wellbeing.
 
“The quickest way to a person’s heart is through their stomach.” This phrase isn’t just true, it may also provide insight into reducing healthcare costs and attracting new employees. The trend of using food as medicine is quickly catching on as more and more people are adopting a variety of eating styles (i.e., keto, vegan, anti-inflammatory) to improve their chronic conditions and health problems. Marissa Costonis’ article, 6 Ways To Reduce Healthcare Costs And Attract Employees, emphasizes on why it’s important to take a more active role to support employees in their day-to-day health endeavors and also offers few ideas to help employees help themselves towards better health.
 
Developing an effective benefits communications strategy can create a competitive advantage for attracting and retaining employees, but it’s easier said than done. Research shows that only 19.3 percent of employees report a “somewhat high” or “very high” understanding of their benefits, while other research indicates employee attitudes towards benefits programs correlate with commitment and engagement. Michael DesRochers’ article, How To Develop An Effective Benefits Communications Strategy shares key tips to increase employee participation, enrollment and engagement to get the most out of open enrollment.

This is not all! We have a variety of other informative articles on employee benefits and wellness in this issue. We hope you enjoy reading all the articles and get back to us with your valuable feedback.
 
Happy Reading!