As many as 68 percent of senior HR leaders believe that employee well-being and mental health should be the top priorities for a company, says The Future Workplace 2021 HR Sentiment survey. However, despite the best of intentions, HRs and Managers find themselves limited by practical difficulties when it comes to the implementation of corporate wellness programs.
To bring to discussion all these aspects around corporate wellness and how HR leaders can implement wellness policies that are both practical and effective, the HR Leaders Virtual Summit was organised by Observe Now Media Group wherein India Health Link (IHL) and HEAL Health were Corporate Wellness Partner and Healthcare Ecosystem Partner respectively.
Speaking on the current trends of declining health among the working population, Dr HK Chopra, Preventive Cardiologist, President, Cardiological Society of India, said, “Today, we see a lot of young people falling prey to heart attacks. About 33 per cent of individuals below the age of 50 years face a massive heart attack. One of the major reasons for heart attacks is stress. There is a strong connection between the heart and the mind, and most heart attacks take place due to the fear and psychology of an individual. Cumulative stress may cause the rupture of plaque in the arteries and precipitate a painful heart attack. Hence, there is an urgent need to move from heart illness towards heart wellness and that can only be achieved through predictive and preventive cardiology.”
“With a majority of the population working from home during the pandemic, their sedentary lifestyle and working habits have taken a toll on their heart health and potbelly or central obesity is the most common sign of this. Men with a belly size of more than 90 cm and women with more than 80 cm of the waistline are vulnerable to a premature heart attack. Moreover, people often overlook hydration while working and forget to consume an ample amount of water during the day. I advise everyone to drink a minimum of 2 litres of water per day to ensure hydration to all the cells of the body as well as good blood circulation,” he added.
Talking about the basics of heart health, Dr Chopra said, “The heart beats about one lakh times a day supplying blood to about 60,000 miles of blood vessels throughout the body and hence it deserves its share of care. Especially with the ongoing pandemic, Covid-recovered employees become even more vulnerable to CVDs. Therefore, HRs must ensure that they have a record of their employees’ health parameters such as blood pressure, pulse, sugar, kidney function, liver function, vitamin D3 levels, ECG pattern and likewise, both before and after the infection. Further, look for deficits and work to rectify them, either through medication or lifestyle optimisation. A Smart-heart app may come in handy during this time which can record their data and also provide them with information and awareness regarding heart-healthy habits.”
Talking of potential strategies to spread healthcare awareness among employees, Dr Satyender Goel, Founder & CEO, India Health Link, said, “Currently, there is a dearth of education and awareness in the field of healthcare concerning diagnosis as well as the accessibility to remedial measures. However, technology is not the barrier here, what is lacking is the prioritisation of health over other developmental factors. Therefore, we have built everything in one app, wherein, we have integrated the whole process, right from diagnosis to treatment, along with real-time test parameters to monitor the impact of those health measures.”
He further says, “The corporate wellness scenario may be divided into two components- clinical care, which includes on-site doctors, consultations, health insurance, annual health checks in offices or nearby clinics, telemedicine, and wellness care, which consists of food and lifestyle habits, physical fitness, mental health, and various types of health counselling. While the clinical care market is thriving with options, the wellness segment is also growing at a fast pace as we have multiple apps and virtual sessions which employers can sign up for. But the problem arises when the employees are made to choose between a multitude of options without knowing the implications of each. That is where the IHL app provides an advantage as it helps you to directly monitor the effects of your habit changes on your health.”
A company’s productivity does not come from its finances, but from healthy employees, employees who are healthy physically, mentally, socially, emotionally, psychologically and environmentally.