Poor health is increasingly holding back British businesses - Beckie Hart

Powerful words. And when they come from someone as well respected as Andy Haldane – former Chief Economist at the Bank of England, and now Chief Executive of the Royal Society of Arts – they must be taken seriously.

Haldane’s comments, delivered at a Health Foundation event and widely reported last week, show just how seriously poor health is impacting UK society. And it is a view backed by the data. Right now, a record 2.5 million people are unable to work because of long-term illness; an extra 133,000 dropped out of the nation’s workforce due to long-term sickness in the three months to September alone.

The 131 million working days which this costs the UK each year wipes £180 billion off our GDP. With inflation surging and the nation at the threshold of recession, we simply cannot afford this lost productivity.

The good news is that business recognises as much – and is already taking steps to help address the problem.

We have only to look back to the Covid pandemic to see just how far businesses will go to protect the health and wellbeing of their staff and customers. Many of our region’s firms went to great lengths – and expense – to pivot operations, reinvent processes and revamp premises to keep people safe.

Employee wellbeing climbed even higher on the business agenda – and has stayed there. And workers have quickly come to expect their employers to take an active role in safeguarding their wellbeing, to the extent that healthcare provision is now a key differentiator for businesses when it comes to recruiting and retaining staff.

But what does good look like when it comes to a company’s health proposition? How can they showcase the strength of their offer? And how can workers judge whether their bosses are offering a great deal – or a sub-par one?

A new CBI initiative launched this week – in collaboration with Business For Health and with full support from partners across business, Government and the NHS – aims to answer all of those questions.

The Work Health Index offers a tool for Yorkshire and Humber businesses to

diagnose the strength of their health offer and benchmark it against peers. It will cover all workplace policies, practices and provision designed to support employee health and wellbeing, from cycle to work schemes to counselling to parental leave policies.

In the immediate term, it will help firms understand their competitiveness and enhance their employee value proposition. In the longer term, it should help to create better work environments and support better health outcomes across the working age population – resulting in elevated workplace productivity.

It is the first of its kind, and the hope is that it can encourage businesses of all sizes, operating across all sectors, to adopt best practice in supporting the health of their workforce.

It’s a long-term strategy which can reap near-term rewards, by setting us on a path towards the workplace resilience we need to increase our productivity and restore momentum to our economy.

Beckie Hart is CBI regional director for Yorkshire and Humber