When it comes to preventative health in a corporate context, who’s most responsible for an employee’s ability to change or manage their health?  Is it the individual; the organisation; environmental factors; or all of the above?

It can easily be presumed that things such as sleep, meditation and diet are all down to personal responsibility, and that preventative health is linked to an individual’s own lifestyle choices and behaviour.

However, that’s never entirely the case. There are always other environmental factors at play which can limit or deter someone’s ability to manage their health and wellbeing.

Our research on preventative health backs this up, citing factors like cost (noted by 54% of corporate employees surveyed), lack of time (noted by 45%), and lack of access to services (noted by 22%) as just three of several barriers to optimal health.

What our research also shows us is that organisations also have a role to play in “clearing a path” for their employees to thrive at work, by creating a wellness-focused environment.

In this article, we’ll highlight some barriers to preventative health and explain how employers can help their staff overcome them in the workplace.

Despite the benefits and services on offer in their workplace, some of our surveyed employees still view staying healthy as a personal obligation – something they believe that they have to manage and be responsible for, which often just leads to added personal stress and unhappiness in an ongoing, unhealthy cycle of pressure and guilt. 

The responsibility conundrum for employees 

As backed up by our research, prevailing narratives around preventative healthcare often place the focus squarely on personal responsibility.

When they fall short, that pressure can quickly turn into self-blame. As our expert panel observed, preventative health is “often linked with personal responsibility [and] a sense of guilt about not making changes”; a mindset that can, ironically, discourage people from engaging at all, or worse again, feed into health ‘fatalism’, i.e. the belief that there’s no point trying to improve, because the damage is already done.

Workplace mindset change

Of course, an employee mindset change is possible, especially among those who already want to engage in preventative health activities such as regular exercise (cited by 55% of those surveyed), routine check-ups (54%) and healthier eating habits (52%).

Employers themselves can also help to change these mindsets and alleviate preventative health pressure and guilt. One way to do this is by creating an environment that focuses on quick wins and culturally acceptable workplace changes to avoid triggering guilt. This could involve things like car parking levies and/or cycling initiatives; blocks on sending or receiving emails outside of work hours, etc. It can also help when an organisation’s leadership openly acknowledges that each employee has a different level of capacity to improve their state of health.

To create a workplace where everyone can feel empowered by preventative healthcare rather than burdened by it, employers can help their staff to prioritise the offerings that matter to them from their company wellness policy.

Some ways to achieve this might include: