Engage Health Group

Tag: group income protection

  • How employee benefits can tackle workplace productivity

    How employee benefits can tackle workplace productivity

    We hear a lot about the UK’s productivity problem, but rarely about the health-related reasons behind it.

    Mental health challenges and musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions are the two biggest causes of workplace absence according to the ONS. But they are also preventing employees from being fully engaged when they are present.

    A study by Simplyhealth revealed that improving support for just three things – mental health, MSK issues, and GP access – could fix up to 80% of the UK’s productivity crisis.

    The good news is that employers can make a difference by investing in the right employee benefits.

     

    What’s causing the drop in productivity?

    Let’s begin by focusing on mental health. AXA’s Mind Health Report 2025 found that 32% of adults globally are dealing with mental health issues. In the UK, mental health accounted for 27% of all sick leave in 2024, up from 23% the year before. This is also the number one reason for long-term absence for employees under 40.

    And it’s easy to see why. Financial stress, job insecurity, workload, and the pressure to stay constantly “on” have taken a toll. Lengthy NHS waiting times mean people often can’t get support until things get serious.

    Then there’s MSK health. Back pain, joint problems, and repetitive strain injuries don’t just cause physical discomfort; they’re also one of the leading causes of absence and the “presenteeism” phenomenon where people show up to work, but only do the bare minimum.

    Together, these two issues massively impact employee health and productivity across the UK.

     

    6 employee benefits that can help

    There’s not one single fix, but there are small changes employers can make to significantly improve workplace health in relations to mental wellbeing and musculoskeletal issues.

     

    1.    Group Health Insurance plans

    Many Company Health Insurance policies include:

    • Virtual GP services for same-day or next day appointments
    • Mental health support – providing access to counselling, psychology, and psychiatry services.
    • Cover for MSK treatment, like physiotherapy, osteopathy, and chiropractic care

    These features mean employees can get help early. Engage Health Group’s team of employee benefits consultants help businesses find appropriate health insurance policies according to the level of support they require.

     

    2.    Employee Assistance Programmes (EAPs)

    EAPs offer confidential support for things like stress, financial worries, or even relationship issues. They’re usually free to employees and available 24/7.

    The key is making sure people actually know about them. Too many companies have EAPs that are unused because employees are unaware they have the benefit. This can be fixed by regularly promoting EAPs through onboarding, internal comms, and manager check-ins. The more familiar employees are, the more likely they’ll use the support when they need it.

    EAPs are often included on a Group Health Insurance plan, but can also be bought as a standalone service. Again, Engage Health Group can help advise on UK and International EAPs and how to implement them for UK or global employees.

     

    3.    Group Health Cash Plans

    Group Health Cash Plans offer reimbursements for everyday healthcare costs, such as dentist visits, eye tests, and physiotherapy. They’re affordable, flexible, and especially useful for supporting MSK health before issues become serious.

    Health Cash Plans are especially good for businesses that want to offer support without the cost of full-time private medical insurance.

    Businesses can select the maximum claimable amount for each service. For example, Bupa’s Cash Plan gives staff the chance to get reimbursements of up to £100, £200 or £300 on physiotherapy, osteopathy, chiropractic and acupuncture treatments – depending on the cover level the employer has invested in.

    Engage Health Group works with all the Group Health Cash Plan providers to ensure businesses get the best coverage options. Contact enquiries@engagehealthgroup.co.uk or 01273 222805 and our team will provide accurate pricing based on the size of your business and any specific needs you may have.

     

    4.    Digital wellbeing tools

    Apps and online platforms are becoming a standard part of the wellbeing toolkit. Popular tools include:

    For example, AXA’s Mind Health Self-Check helps employees assess their mental wellbeing anonymously, then points them to relevant resources. Meanwhile, the likes of Unmind and Headspace provide standalone mental wellness apps backed by clinical research.

    Wellbeing apps are not a replacement for clinical care, but they do help employees take small, daily steps to stay well or identify issues early on.

     

    5.   Group Income Protection

    While Income Protection schemes are best known as ‘sick pay insurance’, in fact the policy does more than provide financial support to unwell employees, it also helps them in their recovery. All the main insurance providers offer some form of early intervention service designed to help employees get better faster and, therefore, speedup their return to work.

    Many Group Income Protection schemes also come with EAPs, mental health support guidance or some form of wellbeing app.

     

    6.    Access to physical therapies

    MSK problems account for more than 7.8 million lost workdays each year. Offering fast access to physiotherapy and osteopathy is one of the most effective ways to prevent MSK problems from becoming long-term issues. When employees can see a physio within days instead of weeks or months via the NHS, minor injuries can be treated early before they worsen.

    Physical therapy is also a preventative measure for MSK. Regular sessions can help improve posture, mobility, and strength, especially if your employees spend long hours at a desk.

    The ability to live free of pain and discomfort gives employees improved energy and concentration levels. This can reduce absenteeism and contribute to better productivity.

     

    7. Healthy workspaces

    Wherever staff are working, and in whatever industry, it’s important that good posture and healthy working habits are supported.

    For office-based work, chairs need to offer ample back support, while desks and monitors need to be set at the appropriate level – and lighting needs to be sufficient. It’s all about ergonomics! In a more physical job, good posture and appropriate manual handling techniques need to be taught and practised.

    Staff should also be encouraged to take their breaks, preferably away from the desk if they are office workers. This supports both their mental and physical health.

     

    Setting up your wellbeing strategy

    Offering these benefits is a good start, but having a wellbeing strategy in place will make a bigger difference in your employees’ lives.

    Over half (53%) of organisations now have a stand-alone wellbeing strategy, according to the CiPD. 

    A wellbeing strategy should include:

    • Finding out what employees need via anonymous surveys, usage data, best practice guidance
    • Choosing benefits that support those needs, preferably with the help of an employee benefits consultancy, like Engage Health Group
    • Training managers to identify early warning signs of staff struggling with stress, whether physical or mental
    • Communicating clearly and regularly about wellbeing and the support you provide
    • Setting goals – for example, you may want to reduce stress-related absence by 10%

    It’s also worth considering employee expectations. AXA’s Mind Health Report found that 52% of employees want their company to provide mental health support, but only 47% say their employer currently does.

     

    Tackling a global issue

    Helping people stay well isn’t just a moral obligation. The McKinsey Health Institute estimates that improving employee wellbeing could generate $3.7 trillion to $11.7 trillion globally, mainly by reducing absenteeism and improving productivity.

    McKinsey breaks down potential savings from improved wellbeing:

    • $2 trillion – $9 trillion from productivity improvements
    • $400 billion – $900 billion from reduced health costs
    • $200 billion – $400 billion in increased workforce participation

    Even on a smaller scale, reducing just a few percent of absence can have a big impact on how much your team can achieve.

     

    How Engage Health Group can help

    At Engage, we help businesses of all sizes design and implement employee benefit strategies that work. This is how we can help your business:

    • We help you select the right mix of benefits
    • We help align benefits with your business’s objectives and needs
    • We help your employees to understand the benefits and actually use what’s available
    • We provide administrative and consultancy support throughout the life of your policy

    We understand that one-size-fits-all doesn’t work, so our advice is tailored to your company. If you’re ready to rethink how your benefits support productivity, we’d love to help. Contact enquiries@engagehealthgroup.co.uk or 01273 222805 to get started.

  • Home working: a game-changer for Employee Benefits strategies?

    Home working: a game-changer for Employee Benefits strategies?

    Let’s face it, 2020 has been extremely challenging for HR decision makers. Employee safety and wellbeing have become the number one topic in organisations and senior management teams have had to move mountains to adapt working processes to cope.

    One of the most prominent changes has been in the number of employees who are working from home. And people seem to like this new arrangement. According to a March 2020 survey by Glassdoor, 67% of UK employees felt that they could be just as productive and benefit from the work-life balance and flexibility that comes with working from home. So if people’s attitudes are changing, what does this mean for an organisation’s employee benefits strategy?

    Of course, not all employees can or should work from home. But the pandemic has certainly erased assumptions that companies had about the necessity of all of their staff to be in their place of work to get the job done. Information gathered by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development suggests that 61% of employees who were not furloughed in April were working from home on a full-time basis. That’s an increase from 24% before the pandemic hit. If there’s anything certain in all of this uncertainty, HR departments can expect a future increase in the number of flexible working requests that they receive on the issue of working from home.

    Radical shifts in thinking are not just the preserve of employees who are wondering if working from home could be the ‘new normal’ for them. With dangers of financial losses from reduced trading in all kinds of sectors, senior managers are looking at empty offices and asking themselves if they’re all really needed when technology can carry the communications load.

    Is your employee benefits strategy still fit for purpose?

    Going beneath people’s desire to work from home reveals all sorts of emerging attitudes about wanting to feel safe and wanting to protect their families and others. But it has also resulted in people valuing some extra time with their loved ones or getting more work done and rejecting the prospect of returning to the dreaded commute. It’s not unreasonable for employees to ask for their changes in attitudes to be supported by their employers.

    From the company point of view, the debate revolves around the advantages and disadvantages of working from home versus the costs of paying for office space. Increasing home working options removes understandable concerns associated with social distancing, wearing face masks and using communal areas. And if people do go back to work in the same numbers, companies may also need to consider improved ventilation and additional cleaning, which only adds to the costs of what may already be an expensive line item.    

    The other aspect of a review of employee benefits revolves around employee costs. Sickness absence costs have probably risen and there may well have been an increase in demand by employees for wellbeing services such as counselling, occupational health consultations and health screenings. The pandemic has increased levels of anxiety and prevented people from getting their usual access to NHS medical and dental services, leading to further health problems. If your benefits strategy has no provision for these types of services, it may be time to ask for advice on what is available.

    Return on investment on employee benefits

    Achieving the best value for your employee benefits package doesn’t have to mean that values are compromised. For example, the trend for open plan spaces and smaller working spaces has compromised people’s privacy. A hard edged business proposal to reduce office space and redirect that savings into a revised benefits strategy may be pushing on an open door as far as employees are concerned.

    There’s no doubt that flexible working, including home working, is a benefit in itself. A successful review, though, should take account of the kinds of benefits that home and other workers are likely to value these days. Some examples are:

    • Dental plans – The pandemic has reduced access to dental services so funded dental plans will help employees to be treated more quickly when dentists open up fully.
    • Business Health Insurance – There are all sorts of packages for all sorts of budgets but the most successful option will focus on the explicit health needs of the workforce.
    • Group Income Protection – The media has covered the real worries that employees have had about being off sick without sufficient sick pay. Income protection can help workers to feel more secure and less stressed.
    • Group Health Cash Plans – These are low cost and can provide a range of benefits to help employees cover the cost of eyes tests, dental work and initial consultations or tests to help get staff diagnosed and back to work quickly. They also often come with an Employee Assistance Programme included, which provides mental health support and, where needed, face to face counselling for employee struggling with their mental health, financial worries and a range of other issues.

    To argue successfully for a change in your company’s employee benefits strategy, it’s crucial to bring some number crunching to the table. A thorough analysis may include the following:

    • The impact of employee benefits on engagement, motivation and productivity
    • Costs that can be saved or expenditure that can be moved into employee benefits – for example, reduced sickness absence levels or reduced office space
    • The key reasons why the proposal is required to allow the company to adapt for the better
    • Acknowledgement of any potential disadvantages or risks, with proposed actions ready to remove or reduce them.

    One route that can assist is an independent review of your current benefits package and what changes you would like to make. Our consultations are designed to analyse at a critical level the employee benefits options that would fit your company’s organisational needs and your employee’s changing desires.

    At Engage Health Group, we work across the health and wellbeing marketplace to ensure you find the right policies at the right price, and ensure your whole benefits package provides prices from across the market.

    Contact our expert team at enquiries@engagehealthgroup.co.uk or call 01273 974419 for FREE no-obligation advice and support.

  • Canada Life introduce “We Care” proposition across Group Risk product lines

    Canada Life introduce “We Care” proposition across Group Risk product lines

    When businesses consider the likes of Group Life, Group Income Protection and Group Critical Illness for their staff, it’s fair to say that their motivations are predominantly formed from concern of the worst happening, and protecting their people in that event.  

    You certainly couldn’t accuse the Group Risk market of being overly sexy and engaging.  In fact, when one imagines the discussion the Employee Benefits Advisor has with their client, you can’t help but envisage the drab, stony-faced scenes at the beginning of The Matrix in which Agent Smith interrogates Keanu Reeves; “Are you sure a benefit term of 2 years will be enough, Mr Anderson?”

    Wouldn’t it be great if instead of focusing purely on the stark protection elements of these products, insurers developed a range of services which employees could actually utilise when they are alive and well? 

    Enter Canada Life’s “We Care”, offering a range of FREE additional employee benefits for companies which purchase ANY of their Group Risk products, including Group Life, Income Protection and Critical Illness. 

    Available solely via Canada Life’s CLASS range, employees will now have unlimited access to the following tertiary services.  What’s more, the additional services are available to every member of the employees’ immediate family as well as all staff within the organisation, even if they are not included on the insurance cover! 

    So what do employees now have access to?

     

    Virtual GP Consultation

    Speak to a GP over the phone or via video call from the comfort of your own home. 24/7, 365 days of the year with no limitations on how often an employee calls.

     

    Second Medical Opinion

    Access to over 50,000 leading consultants worldwide, offering expert second opinions on diagnosis and treatments for almost any condition.

     

    Smoking Cessation

    A team of specialists to support employees all the way, helping to set goals and give tips to beat smoking.

     

    Mental Health Support

    Anxiety, stress and depression are just a few health difficulties many people suffer from.  Up to 10 therapy sessions to guide employees in the right direction.

     

    Burn-out Prevention

    Addressing symptoms as early as possible is the best way to beat it.  Up to 10 sessions with a specialist to assist with coping mechanisms and reduce stress.

     

    Life-events counselling

    If an employee is suffering bereavement, going through a divorce or has had a traumatic experience, talking to someone can help.  Up to 10 personalised sessions with an expert means staff can get the right support.

     

    Healthy Diet at Work

    A professional nutritionist can assist employees in devising a personalised diet plan, plus top tips on staying healthy when eating out.

     

    Get Fit Programme

    Four or eight week get fit programmes with a specialist, providing a structured exercise regime.

    With all of these great benefits, it’s easy to forget that they are additive to the core insurance purpose of protecting the lives and health of employees. But that’s the point really.  It’s sensible to put measures in place to protect ourselves against the worst happening, but now employers can feel good about mundane insurance plans in the knowledge that their teams have access to a range of genuinely useful additional services.

    There are lots of Group Risk insurers now bucking the associated image of their industry, and this can only be a good thing, as ultimately, it means more employees and their families are protected.

     

    But I can only show you the door Neo, you’re the one that has to walk through it!

    Contact our expert team of brokers at enquiries@engagehealthgroup.co.uk or call 01273 974419 for FREE no-obligation advice and support.