The current COVID-19 situation had forced many employers to make changes to their everyday work routines in the best interests of their employee health and safety. On the other hand, it has not been easy for the employees either to adapt to the upcoming uncertainties along with juggling in between multiple responsibilities. And so, while returning to the workplace, the employee wellness expectations and demands have changed accordingly with the changing scenario.
Well, to do better than their counterparts, to retain their loyal workforce, boost employee engagement, and to run the business productively, employers have to bow down to most of these expectations, which seem fair enough in most situations.
One of the latest employee wellness solutions expected by most employees is – Digital Health Solutions.
Survey Reports On Digital Health Solutions
The latest Mercer Marsh Benefits, Mercer and Oliver Wyman report revealed something similar. Aiming to understand what employers and employees think about modern digital health solutions, the survey was conducted with almost 16K workers and 1,300 senior executives across 13 countries. Almost 2K workers and 100 executives were from the US alone.
Surprisingly, only a small global 5% of the employees said that they are not really interested in the novel digital health solutions, while a majority of the younger employees were intrigued and interested in the idea of their employers offering them digital health solutions.
When asked specifically on what kind of digital health solutions would they possibly love to use, the specific concerns and ideas varied across the countries.
While wearables and fitness devices topped the charts in the UK, robotic support for eldercare was more preferred in China. In the USA, the hypothetical interests regarding employer-offered health solutions ranged diversely –
- 39% – were more interested in a health and wellness app for themselves and their family
- 38% – Personal e-health records
- 36% – Health and wellness self-management tools
- 36% – Telehealth services for common health issues
The survey not only answered many questions for the employers regarding the attitude of the employees towards the modern digital health solutions, but it also made it easy for them to strategize their employee health and safety offerings.
Over the years, there is a lot of evidence showing that employers have started taking employee health and wellness seriously, and through this poll, almost 94% of the employers proved the same by agreeing that they would prioritize employee health and safety in the upcoming years.
Almost 68% of the employers in the US said that they were planning on increasing their investment budget for the next five years towards employee health and wellness, especially on digital health solutions. 40% felt that by offering the right digital health solutions, their employee engagement and retention rates would get better.
Why Digital Health Offerings Are Important?
Mercer’s Center for Health Innovation had told in one of their MobiHealthNews online survey answers that there is a great opportunity for digital health and wellness companies to succeed in the corporate wellness market. A Health on Demand survey revealed that investing in digital health solutions is probably one of the best investments that employers can make, and there is enough evidence to prove that employers are highly committed to investing in employee health and wellness solutions.
68% of the employers were planning to invest in digital health products, and employee health and wellness solutions in the upcoming five years.
Mercer’s 2019 National Survey of Employer-Sponsored Health Plans showed that the trend was already well-accomplished in the corporate wellness industry. Almost 57% of the bigger employers who were catering to more than 5000 employees were investing adequately in employee digital health solutions, whereas 41% of the smaller businesses with 500 – 5000 employees were using digital offerings to drive employee engagement.
Kate Brown, the leader at Mercer’s Center for Health Innovation also suggested that there were many motives why employees and employers were willing to try these digital health solutions, the key reasons being –
- Having personal and family electronic and portable medical and health records.
- An app to find a doctor, telehealth, or for medical care.
The underlying element for both these primary reasons was the convenience of the employees in tracking and accessing their health records easily through their daily lives.
The Trending Digital Health and Wellness Solutions
It has become quite evident that digital health tools are a good health and wellness investment for the employers, and also a great employee engagement tool. However, there are various dimensions to these solutions, and for them to effective, you need to choose the ones that are of interest and use to your workforce.
For example, investing in a high-tech app with a lot of features may be confusing to the non-technology users of your workforce.
Know what your workforce wants. The corporate wellness market is offering plenty of user-friendly fitness devices – Fitbit, Apple Watches, Garmin, and health apps like – Google Fit, Strava, Apple Healthkit.
Understand what your employee health and safety needs are, conduct surveys to know what is more interesting to them, and then invest in it. By analyzing the demands and catering to them suitably, you can not only boost employee health and wellness, but also build positive workplace culture, while improving organizational productivity and business ROI.