Future insights for the
workplace of tomorrow

good morning everyone and welcome to health insights live it's great to be back with you today for our final episode of the year as your health and well-being partner we've designed this series to discuss the healthcare challenge facing employers across the UK

it's part of our commitment to keep you updated on the latest clinical and well-being Trends so you always feel one step ahead today we'll be discussing how organizations can help to address the rising tide of economic inactivity of people in the UK due to ill health by investing in the prevention Revolution more people than ever before are leaving the workforce due to long-term sickness resulting in the greatest ever number of economically inactive people in the UK with the financial times calling us the sick man of Europe over 2 and a half million people are off work due to chronic illness a figure that has risen by nearly half a million since the start of the pandemic in January 2020 and whilst Rising economic inactivity has occurred across all G7 countries after lockdown restrictions were introduced this is largely reversed in all countries except the UK where it's continued to rise research suggests that access to healthcare and a possible decline in the overall health of the UK population are the main drivers of increased economic inactivity organizations are therefore experiencing a loss in Talent

Recruitment and Retention challenges and a skills Gap shortage today we'll explore why organizations are being driven to provide more health and well-being services to keep people in Better Health and how they can reduce the number of people leaving the workforce due to long-term illness in response to Talent challenges we're seeing more organizations look looking to provide more preventative and proactive health and well-being services and at berer we're calling this the prevention Revolution the discussions we're having with clients suggest a transition from simply offering health care when individuals feel unwell to adopting a much more proactive approach to delivering preventative and proactive health and well-being services to their employees so for today's session I'm pleased to be joined by our three experts

joining our panel is Dr Petra Dr Petra simik medical director berer health clinics morning Petra uh Michaela O'Reilly head of reward and HR analytics at ipsos good morning and Rebecca Holland head of Engagement and well-being at the telegraph Media Group

morning morning right um oh by the way before we get going send us your questions throughout the session and we'll answer as many as we can a bit later on any we don't get to we'll answer afterwards so we've got loads to get uh get on with so let's get started

um welcome everybody I'm goinging to you Petra first but um don't rest on your Laur too long won't be long so um based on conversations you're having with our clients what do you think there's uh why do you think there's been such a big shift in businesses looking to invest in more preventative Services and what trends are we seeing well Richard it's not new so certainly even before 2021 we were seeing an increase in in demand for preventative um and well-being services

and certainly catered For within the PMI product um and we've been making it easier for businesses to do that by designing services and several new modules that sit outside of the core PMI product but can be integrated within the contract so um there's been really interesting things such as uh our fertility check cancer screening and menopause which are actually three of our top five most requested uh modules um and in January we're going to be offering three new modules which is really exciting so the men's sexual function plan uh nutrition and face- tace GP um I think with the increase in claims during 2023 we've been seeing clients uh focus more on preventative health so they can help manage costs and claims but also improve the health and well-being of their employees and and I think what we're seeing as corporates really wanting to understand that link between provision and how we fund

Downstream care and and how can we invest in screening to prevent Downstream costs but also um improve the engagement with their Workforce too um so alongside uh earlier intervention services and screening services we've also been investing in making it easier for members to access healthy lifestyle um and that includes providing all three million of our members c um access to the digital gym uh meditation and fitness programs so uh and along with the comprehensive well-being Services digitally so I think it's really exciting our direction of travel but it's very clear that our corporates are asking for us to be really proactive um and really curious about the things that will help people remain well great thank you very much I mean I work for Boer so obviously I think that's all amazing I'm quite looking forward to all coming in on the staff sche to be honest and but actually what strikes me is a lot of those are so topical even I mean if you go into LinkedIn for example you find I'm articles on the menopause or fertility and so on so actually it

strikes me as much more um engaging than it used to be much more Pro more proactive that's what we're talking about Michaela I'm going to come to you next so what what investments have ipsos made in preventative health and wellbeing services and what are you seeing hi Richard so we we put a lot of time and resources into our mental health strategy a few years back um it was really important to us because you know the the data at the time was it was all one in four people have bad mental health at some stage in their life but our the stats wasn't showing that you know the mental health pathway that we have with bipa was not showing that anybody was going down that pathway um then also the EAP was less than 1% of the population was so that it wasn't adding up so we put a lot of time and a lot of effort into we got senior sponsorship which I think if you're going to launch anything having senior someone on the board we set up a panel um and in that panel we had um somebody who was on the board and we had people throughout the business um talking about when they had bad mental health um from talking about suicide to talking about um just being bullied and work you know so things that are wide range of spectrum we videoed it um um I and it was the impact of just something like that had was huge on the business all of us you know not all of a sudden but over the years we are now 133% in our EAP I believe that's um you know greater than the UK average I'm not going to smile about it but I am really happy about it my but my aim is to get that higher um also uh what one of the biggest things then is the mental health pathway we had more people then going down that mental health pathway but the cost was less why is that they're they're going into it earlier you know so when was we were talking and trying to review with our Brokers what was going on um we think we obviously don't know but we think that it was because employees were going into it earlier and knew about it going into it earlier and not staying and getting long-term treatment you know um so it's really important um and it has had a massive impact on our mental health um and how we do it and work it's all about networks and you know not a HR policy nobody wants to see another hit charm policy it's um you know we we use the networks a lot you know we um we the managers we have resources for them you know so it's it's a lot of just pointing we point now to where the things are rather than um telling people what they need to do so next I'm really happy to hear about all these things coming in pet because next year I'm focusing on getting everybody fit in ipsos and we're going to be looking at because msk I think we were talking about it before is one of our big spans um so um definitely we're going to be looking on that so be very interested now and the products that are coming out next year for that great I hope my team are listening to that there I'll I'll on your yeah yeah but the movement 1% to 133% is amazing what a shift and at lower cost it's just it's and it's that thing it's not about work stress for the EAP it's been communicating that oh you're having trouble with your landlord ring the EAP you know your finances you're in debt ring the EAP you know it's um and we we put it on every type of communication that comes out from any type of network so with the BB loss Awareness was a couple of weeks ago you know um and they had the EAP and the B health line and all the resources that we have um all the networks use it and it's part of anything you know any any sort of any sort of email that goes out from from Kelly or CEO um but it's if it's got to do with anything to do with mental health or what's going on um it'll be advertised there with all the resources so it's it's it's saing an impact we see that now sounds great and also from um we've heard a lot on these panels the role of leadership and a leader kind of um showing some vulnerability and while sponsoring things as well makes a massive difference it really does it really does getting sign sponsorship is massive and any initiatives that we've done whether it's within HR within the networks once there's U senior sponsorship people people want to be involved don't they we bit more than they would do if it was just HR telling them what to do we need to give people permission ex consume these you know not just here it is but it's okay to do that too yeah I think so yeah so we're so far a success so I hopefully now we'll have a very fit population next year good job Olympic year as well right

Petra I'm going to come back to you so if business don't increase their investment in more preventative Services over the next coming years what do you think the risks will be yeah it's a really good question Richard I think typically and historically workplace based Health really has focused particularly in Occupational Health um and I think we now recognize that by the time Occupational Health Services are involved we have missed the opportunity for early effective and cheaper interventions and really what we need to be looking at is kind of much earlier on in interventions in terms of health care um the healthare system is more fragmented than ever um we alone can't change that but there's multiple entry points multiple ways to access care and more challenging Pathways to navigate um and we're definitely seeing evidence of less continuity of care in both primary care and secondary care um and as a result we're seeing more workplace uh absence um in addition to that we're also seeing increase prevalence of some conditions so uh certainly long covid is um having an impact um mental health issues so although it's great to see this increased awareness we're definitely seeing and I'll talk you know a bit about that later maybe just increased prevalence of mental health conditions across the country that's not unique to um Workplace Health um but also cardiovascular disease interestingly we're seeing increased prevalence of that so that has an impact but the fragmentation of care means that we have an increased numbers of people on waiting lists um perhaps with pain related conditions or conditions that are affecting their ability to to work whether it be physically mentally um but also people waiting longer to get to diagnosis so that fragmented care means it's harder to get to a diagnosis quickly so longer to get effective treatments um if we think about how we see care so if we have a company of a thousand people we treat and cover treatment for around one in four of those people um and I think the figures we've got at the moment is about 30 of those are mental health 120 msk issues and 30 for cancer and heart disease

so these are significant and enduring health issues um I think we're all really familiar with the data that shows that the benefits of a healthy Workforce I don't think we need to kind of go over that but I think there's some real gender differences as well so um for men we have a real issue in life expectancy that's not improving and I think the issue with men is more around ability to access or permission to access and trying to navigate these complex systems does not help whereas for women and the importance of keeping women in the workforce again we've we've gone through this many times in the last few years and and the data but for women it's often about the types of services being offered and the quality of them so there are these subtle but important differences and we need to kind of call them out and try and try and identify what those gaps are to improve that yeah that's really interesting actually the differences isn't it important to have very different propositions um uh and be thoughtful about it as well Becky I'm going to come to you next um so do you think having on-site Services has other advantages such such as bringing people back into the office and do you think people feel more comfortable to see support this year yeah so thank you Richard

so um yes I do believe that um they do help and support people within the business and I think that people have settled into their post-pandemic normality now so their working routine coming into the office and that kind of thing has just become the norm um having the on-site Services is making them accessible convenient makes them want to use them it just feels part of their normal day as opposed to having to find the time to do them and as we all know we're all really busy trying to find time to do these things can be quite difficult sometimes um things like having an on-site GP um has been really valuable for us particularly you know like you say Petra The Strain on the NHS um and people not being able to get appointments having an accessible GP onsite for staff is really really helpful um and it just helps that early intervention as well which is really really important um and I just think generally having well-being services and support onsite helps to Foster that well-being culture which is really important um people being able to attend classes or yoga Pilates the gym onsite it just helps them to Foster that well-being attitude um and most of our on-site Services as well are available to staff at no actual additional cost um and given that we are in a bit of a cost of living crisis as well I think that's really important and could be really helpful too great thank you very much I love patus never never have any time never mind that's a different story uh okay look we love a poll uh you know we love a poll so here we go it's coming up on your screens now has your organization expanded its health and well-being Services over the past year yes or no uh right thank you Becky uh that brings us on to our next discussion point on the business case for the joining the prevention Revolution so Petra I'm coming back to you uh do you think businesses agree that offering broader wellness and lifestyle benefits as well as health insurance is a useful Recruitment and Retention tool oh you know I think absolutely we've seen it uh in many different spaces but the you know people are more interested than ever in this so both our intermediaries and our clients are really taking to screening and Primary Care Services as a potential attraction and retention tool and I think in addition even some of our well health uh kind of well health modules for for for PMI such as assisted fertility gender dysphoria cancer screening the menopause plan are really supporting A diversity in inclusion agenda as well so I think there there's a number of elements in which there's real benefit for for businesses but we're definitely seeing that real interest I think you know we've covered a little bit about women and the importance of keeping them in the workplace despite menopause period care responsibilities but I think the other group that we need to think about is our younger Workforce um younger workers have higher expectations um around benefits and the advantages of work so although we've heard a lot about hybrid working flexible working Arrangements shared values and higher pay I think there's something around meaningful um health and well-being provision um and not just mental health provision as well so I think the key phrase here is Meaningful um they're quite wise to what may be access to an app compared to something that feels purposeful for them and I think we've got uh I think it's 32% of genes and 39% of Millennials rank work life balance as the most important factor when they're searching for a job so um these youngsters are really teaching Us by the way in which they act that we must put Health very high on that list when we're considering work and you know I think we'd be fools not to listen yeah it's interesting the meaningful point isn't it I mean obviously I don't look old enough but I've been in this industry for 22 years I know that's a shock to everyone but but when I started um it was very much about Cancer Care which is obviously super important but and and obviously SK and a few other bits but now it's so much more rounded and more engaging and so many really topical things that helping people um with things they really struggle with a much more targeted way you know Cancer Care is a great example obviously very important really essential but most people don't want to think about cancer or talk about cancer because it's other you don't really want to think about it so although it's important sometimes for us those who are funding it or providing it for the user something they don't really want to think about so I think it's really listening to what people want is so essential much more engaging yeah definitely Michaela I'm coming to you next so incorpor incorporating health and well-being into the workplace requires a whole system of culture change how has ipsos pioneered a more preventative culture well I think you just said it there work work life balance it's it's all it's all about being able to to give employees that the to think about their health and well-being like we we we Flex We plates yoga meditation sessions it's all you know and it's all employees doing it so it's employees that are teaching other employees how to do it you know so it's really really good you know we have um we've also I think you know the bppa um providing the bppa healthcare is is is is really good as well but talking about the health being important this year we saw in our um renewal um more people take out Health assessments where you pay for them yourself and they're really expensive you know so there and people were taking them out we had like a you near 100% increase you know or even more than that you know so people are thinking about that and our data is showing that that this is what people want they want a good um health plan in place so we looked at um you know look Beyond perks and benefits like just as you were saying there we would like um we it involves comprehensive system involves not only um benefits that you bring in but people that are in the business so you know managers been able to spot somebody who is maybe um not not themselves you know what's going on um but also um encouraging proactive measures to maintain improve their overall well-being you know there's initiatives that we're always doing like a walk from one office to the other you know they do we do it every year um for charity you know it's like 27 20 something miles you know it's from Harrow to um TMS and um you know so it's things like that constantly trying to think and get people to do um well you're trying to get them to look after themselves aren't you you know people don't put sometimes their health um um in the Forefront as they should do it's reminding them to do that I think if that's a if that's balanced with a big message around work life balance isn't it's encouraging people to do we we bought in wellbeing hours in my world but you really have to encourage people to take the time to do it I know you're busy but actually you can be so much more effective if you actually take the time out can I a walk at lunchtime just simple things not sitting at your desk not you know even people that work from home are you sitting correctly at your desk you know where where your msk then comes into it again doesn't it you know um so it's it's we we've seen we've seen a lot more people being interested in and and what we can provide from a health point of view um so we are looking at other options to see what's out there um you know and then of course your new products coming in and seeing what else we can offer as a company yeah great we've got lots of those um I think it's so important to create the environment though isn't it for people to feel comfortable accessing it all which sounds obvious but I mean and you know that the men you were talking about Men's Health that's that's massive you know it's massive we we we just can't get men to do anything in our you know they um when it comes to their well-being you know um it's always very few but the stats are telling me it's it's mostly females that are anything health related um and most of the assessments are are are females you know that are going through it um but then also been able to provide a think of GP you know you saying that as well um and I love that idea of having an in-house Phio yes yes um you know so things like that um which I'm going to be G to be nabbing that idea thanks but you know it's it's been able to provide all this kind of that doesn't cost the company too much money but certainly it's it's helping the employee yeah great thank you hold that thought on Mental Health we're coming back to that in a minute so but first Petra I'm coming back to you so what are the potential long-term cost savings through preventative measures like wellness programs and health screenings well I mean to answer this question I think probably the best thing for me to do is look at our data um so we do extensive health screening individualized personalized with behavior change and I thought be quite good to look at some of our data so looking our data over the last 3 years which covers about 300,000 people I thought I'd just look at a few measures to see what what that's telling us and it was a real story of two halves um we saw some brilliant news in that data um and surprising news I wasn't expecting to see this we saw a reduction in harmful drinking since 2021 in that 300,000 people so 10% reduction in people engaging in Risky drinking behaviors which I thought was quite interesting because I think if we think back to 2021 we were still you know in the final throws of covid and I think there had been quite a lot of conversations about people's drinking having gone up at home because they weren't driving anymore they weren't going to work there was nothing to do that it wasn't actually the going out and socializing that was increasing people's drinking it was being socially isolated and being at home was increasing people's drinking so I think that's quite interesting and I think that's really good news because we were heading in a direction that wasn't looking great also again surprising and not expected I saw some improvements in blood pressure just small improvements but fewer people being diagnosed with raised blood pressure which again surprising um and a slight reduction in in body fat okay over those three years so those are definitely bucking a more general population Trend now I'd love to sit here and go well that's because they using to poer health assessment I don't think we can say that but what's the correlation is it because we've got engaged people that are engaging with their health and we're giving them the tools to do it is it because our health assessment which is brilliant by the way um is doing what it says it should do is it because we've got most engaged people taking it up I'm not sure but that's quite fascinating information now the flip side is our mental health picture so the mental health picture is not looking quite so Rosy um so around one in four of the people that we see um are showing signs of depression or anxiety um and we're seeing evidence of worse sleep um uh that's quite significant um and in men and women of all ages and for all stages of anxiety and depression mild moderate and severe we've seen a 10 10% increase in people experiencing those symptoms in that over that period so that's really interesting to to look at and certainly I think there's increased mental health awareness and that's brilliant and I think your desire to get more people using EAP service I completely think that's great but we are seeing more people with demon demonstrable mental health issues and I suspect that's complex you know Financial pressures um you know the economy the global political situation there are many reasons that could be driving that but that's that's what we're seeing so I guess for me I've always thought and I still strongly believe that an effective preventative kind of strategy and health screening strategy will produce better results but it's always been quite hard to sort of prove that point I think we're starting to see that real evidence as people are consuming our health Assessments in a way that we've seen better uptake than ever before and people coming back for two three so I think it's that consistency getting to that habit of checking in with yourself and also the fact that health screening needs to be individualized to be meaningful there's no point just chucking a load of tests at someone and and hoping that they stick you need to be doing the thing that matters to them so I think we've seen evidence orbe it a correlation between some improvements but also the other thing to think about if we're finding mental health conditions which we are is and you're an organization that's I don't know that's got health screening have you got a mental health provision alongside it because if you're just identifying it this isn't something that a meditation a trip to the gym and a pilates class is going to solve so are you putting other supports in place to ensure they've got provision structured mental health support or are you just chucking them into a fragmented system that can't that can't meet the demand so I think from a mental health space there's a question of identify it great but so what um from a physical health point of view I think we can see there are benefits from doing the identification and getting that consumption so I I think there's massive benefits that I can see and that's just objectively looking at the data it's really interesting to see the shift isn't it from the physical to mental yeah um Becky coming to you um how do you communicate the value of preventative health to employees so we try to remind people every opportunity that we have um and to reinforce those messages in all of our communication channels so we have regular people news lesss we have group chats we plug them at our wellbeing events um we also have a well-being Network across the company and then we also have departmental well-being Champions within each department to help Advocate and drive those messages um through a departmental level um word of mouth is brilliant and we found that obviously speaks for itself and can be really powerful for example if someone has been to one of the hell screeners like you mention then um if they've something's been found that they didn't even know was there and they've been able to have some early intervention that speaks for it itself and it speaks volumes um and we just generally host very various different events um and activities um we have a well-being week every January we Link in with the national events so whether it's mental health awareness or cancer and those kind of events to just really publicize and reinforce about wellbe great it sounds like you basically just have a big internal marketing campaign pretty much it always helps yeah absolutely great okay let's now talk more specifically about the benefits of offering certain services uh and we spoke about Men's Health already so taking that as a case study we know that when it comes to Men's Health prevention and early intervention can make a big difference in clinical outcomes in the UK men on average die around uh die younger than women primarily uh because men are less inclined to seek medical help when they feel unwell or discuss their symptoms openly so Petra I'm coming back to you again you're busy today aren't you I am um okay so uh can you firstly tell us what are the the big health issues impacting men in the workplace well the figure that you expressed is not UK only um it is global but the UK doesn't Faire particularly well compared to other countries that have narrowed their Gap a bit more um so men die are more likely to die of heart disease cancer and are twice as likely to die by Suicide and um we don't know exactly why in fact the House of Commons Health and Social care committee are holding an inquiry right now intim Men's Health um for exactly that reason to try and understand um I have some of my own theories which I'll share with you I think um men are not educated consumers of healthc care uh I think for women once we start our periods we often end up consuming Health Care in our teens um whether it be to manage period problems or to manage uh contraceptions so we become educated um in how to access health care and often our moms will teach us how to do it and we have to biology forces us to become skilled at navigating the healthcare World men on the other hand don't have those same triggers and so they have to then access reactive health care and Men you know men generally between the ages well young men um generally are pretty healthy so they often don't have to access in fact young women are generally see often the only reason they see their doctor is for contraception um is that men then don't learn the skills of how to access Healthcare when they later on need it so I think there's some real interesting things around attitude and um kind of beliefs and masculinity and health but I think there's some practical issues around how just how do you do it and often as a GP I'll find that um there are men in their 30s whose moms are still making their GP appointment appointments for them because they just don't know how to do it and and and you realize that's quite fascinating because these are people that are fully capable of running a whole house or business and doing complex tasks but getting I know getting a GP appointment can be challenging anyway but you know even pre- challenges um so men I think there's a figure of about 30 men are 32% less likely to seek medical help than than women um so we have to think about how we bring Health Care to men so yeah there's an education piece but as we know you can't just educate people into Healthcare that doesn't work we need to think creatively about how we bring Health Care to men so one of the you know one of the things we've done is Health assessments is to try and make them very comprehensive so if if we are getting men into health screening because it's a corporate benefit and there are more men eligible for it then we make sure that we are assessing things that are very relevant to Men's Health such as you know not just prostate cancer screening I mean mental health screening I mean alcohol screening I mean addiction screening well-being so making sure that we're asking those questions so that they become more comfortable with talking about those things but I think the other thing that we've tried to do um recently and I it'll be really interesting to see how that pans out is we took a step back and said let's forget what men need what is it that men consume what is it in the healthc care setting that they seem to have voluntarily gone out to consume effortlessly and the one thing that we've seen is a massive interest in testosterone testing and supplementation and Viagra one of the biggest sellings o over the counter medication since it became available since 2016 and in 2016 prescribed Viagra was three million prescriptions in 2016 so we really reflected on that and realized that men's sexual function is very important to them so therefore is there both a need for that service and could that service be a useful way to engage with men around their health um so yeah we've created a men men's sexual function uh plan which uh will be launching next year um and the exciting thing about it is it absolutely deals with sexual function issues a whole range of them but rather than just focusing on that we do a much more holistic assessment of the person seeking the care because we know that sexual function problems could well be a symptom of other things whether it be a systemic problem like diabetes or cardiovascular disease mental health problems alcohol issues relationship issues it's not just a case of what's your testosterone level it's more complex than um women and and menopause and hormonal changes there is much more of a kind of holistic approach needed to the assessment of it um and we're really curious to see how well that's consumed what our male customers feel about it and I think more interested to see whether there some people will come and consume that product that may have avoided health screening in other settings so it's um it will be interesting how how that goes and I'm I'm really curious yeah it's right it will be interesting to see actually engaging again on a really specific topic and how that how that drives engagement generally uh to be honest I'm still realing that not everyone gets their mom to get their G appointment anyway maybe that's just me okay uh Becky I'm going to come back to you so what challeng are you seeing around mental health in the workplace and what preventative measures are you taking in response so I think whilst as we've mentioned strides are being taken to address mental health but there's still really very much a stigma attached to it um also for us we obviously are a newsroom therefore there's additional pressures from that whether that be exposure to traumatic content hostile environments um so there's lots of other complexities that we need to take on board as well I think people don't naturally look at their mental health in the same way they would if they had a phys a physical injury um so trying to encourage people to treat it in the same way that they would is really important and I think it's important to look at the culture and try to um encourage a culture where well-being matters and it's okay to talk about mental health and it's really really important that people look after themselves um from a preventative measures perspective we've got lots of different things that we've put in place um across the organization um we have over 50 train mental health first aiders um and over the past 18 months we've introduced well-being conversations man um training for both managers and peer-to-peer um and it's to give people the confidence and the tools to be able to have those conversations about mental health and not be worried that they might say the wrong thing because actually saying something is better than saying nothing at all um this year we introduced um an onsite CBT counselor um therapist um that has been really really important and and been really has been really well received actually just making the services accessible and removing that additional barrier where people may have to speak to a couple of people before they get to that service so it just makes it almost direct access straight in which has been really important and then we also do some really fun and engaging activities and things so last Friday we had poppies at work in which is all about mental health um and just getting people away from their desks and coming up and spending 20 minutes with poppies um which always goes down very well and sells at extremely popular um benefit um then we also have lots of guest speakers we've had musicians coming in who play some music and also talk about how music helps their mental health um and just generally lots of activities to just raise awareness and get people involved in supporting mental health and normalizing talking about it great it sounds fantastic um the thing that really resonates with me actually is um uh and so we talk are starting to talk about lots of work is you know having the conversation and not worrying about saying something wrong but going in with the right intent I think people kind of understand that you're seeking to understand if you're doing the right way that's much better than just sitting in the corner and thinking I can't talk about that I'm going to get it wrong so yeah good point right uh where are we okay here we go I'm coming back to you again sorry look we know one in eight men uh will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their life so um what can businesses do to encourage more men to get checked for cancer well I think when it comes to cancer and in fact when you look at the statistics one in two of us will get cancer at some point of our life as well you know I mean it's this is a a reality for for at least half of us um I think there are three main things that businesses can do I think the first is to encourage engagement in screening whether that be screening that you are funding and providing or NHS screening um really opening people's eyes to the importance of it it's not something for someone else it's there for a reason and encouraging engagement with it um even if you have to enable something within your business to make that happen so I think that's important so encourage the engagement in screening um engaging in reactive healthare because the vast majority of councel are not discovered through screening they're discovered through people having having symptoms so thinking about what have you done to invest in reactive Health Care within your workplace setting you know whether it be on-site Services access access to digital um GP Services um direct access services like we have so just making people aware of what they have and if you haven't got anything reflecting on is there something you need to do and if you can't do that because you're a business that's not big enough to justify that then are you at least making it possible for people to go and manage the hurdles in front of them to get access to Primary Care um you know what is it that you need to do as a workplace to say it's okay to go and see your doctor because it's not easy to book appointments now that are convenient for you if you are a working adult and the third is encouraging healthy lifestyle choice and I think we've kind of referred to a number of brilliant I love the puppy idea I'm just saying that I love the puppy idea I'm not sure I'm sure there must be something about serotonin and oxytocin but I don't think I can show there's evidence for that but anyway encouraging healthy lifestyle choices so what is it that you do as a business or an organization or a culture to really encourage physical activity we know that exercise is the best medicine until you injure yourself and have an msk condition but let's that it is the best medicine it leads to lower cancer lower cardiovascular um disease lower cases of diabetes Etc so how do you promote physical activity and good lifestyle choices are you doing events that don't always you know revolve around booze are you doing things that involve getting active so yeah encourage healthy lifestyle encourage engagement with in screening and think about how you facilitate access to reactive Health Care because that is probably the number one biggest thing that you can do and if you can't do it within the workplace are you making it possible for people to seek healthare when they need it great thank you very much so Becky um can you talk to us about any initiatives that encourage employees to maintain a healthy lifestyle yeah so I think um maintaining a healthy lifestyle is about forming healthy habits um so having um easily accessible Services onsite is a massive part in that so whether that like we said earlier is accessing the onsite gym or the health screenings and things that are available I think the regular Health screenings provide a full health mot um that's an opportunity for people to see what's going on inside and that can naturally help maintain help to motivate people and help them to maintain that healthy lifestyle and we have flu vaccination program on site every winter um this year we launched um a new benefit in partnership with herity um as you mentioned about menopause earlier um the benefit it offers um hormone and fertility tests and as part of that there's access to fertility advisers and Consultants um and also alongside that side of things we've also updated our menopause and param menopause policy and as part of that we include menopause coaching for women um and also we have recently introduced a well-being room um which is just a quiet space designed for people to take themselves away if they need to um and just go to their own personal needs and and just take have that time and space to be able to do that and also I think having we measure our engagement um measure wellbeing through our engagement surveys um and having questions around well-being in that actually obviously shows the support from the top and how important well-being is to the company great thank you very much sounds great so gonna get a job there I think I'm not really I'm not okay uh so look keep your questions coming in we'll answer as many of those as we can in a bit as we're coming to the end of our set questions before we get to that we got another the poll we love a poll uh does your Oran organization do enough to support Men's Health with preventative service yes or no be coming up on your screens right now okay so moving on to our final discussion point I'd like to chat about the adoption of digital well-being Technologies and clinical Innovations to improve employee health so Michaela I'm coming to you first so can you share any success stories or outcomes related to the use of digital tools to support employee wellbeing um thanks richer we we we have um a well-being Hub so it's it's a platform but we we host um content from the provider that we we license it from but we also host all of our um internet content I don't know what anyone else's internet like but sometimes I can get lost trying to find things on our own because there's so much there isn't there from every um from every department so we link everything so it's one it's one it's a hub they just go in there and they'll find anything they need to find it's split into four it's physical nutrition um mental and Financial the the the form me everyone's using and in that we can see what people are looking at and that's that's what really helps us so I can see what Fitness videos people are looking at I can see what um recipes people are looking at but what's really important is I can see in the financial and the mental what people are really looking at as well that really helps with us build our strategy um because if I can see that people are looking at sleep and are having problems sleeping with it which is is something we have and it's packs up your your um um what what you have as well there um if we so we then as part of the well-being team we can put together um somebody to come in and talk about sleep and how to get better sleep so it really really helps us to to Define what we're going to do next year um uh so the and even outside of that um we are Ren last year funny enough we saw um and our we have a flex platform we saw 200 D selections the day that the window was closing you know the windows two weeks um and it was all health benefits because of the cost of living crisis so I knew that we had to as a company do something because I'd never seen that happen before you know people can't afford health benefits because they're afraid of what's coming down the line so we were able to then um um put a business case together to help employees from a financial point of view um because coming out of health benefits wasn't something that we would we would want employees to do and if they were fearing their financial crisis they're going to come out of Health um so we did do something and this year then again Health assessments been through the roof you know PMI back up again you know I'm seeing what I should be seeing from employees um so it it the digital tools help us create the strategy Mi means that we've got um um a return on investment I can prove that what we spend on these digital platforms um really helps um employees because we can we can build the well-being strategy and also see what they're doing you know anonymously of course you know yeah it's great to hear that how the Mi helps you kind of support your employees and and kind kind of change PIV strategy yeah and also let you know what's going on you know let what's going on in the business you know with with employees yeah so it was pretty good great I've got another one for you just while you're while you're in the chair so recognizing that different Generations may have different uh sorry varying levels of digital literacy and preferences is it important for multigen uh it's important for multigenerational workforces how do you think organizations can ensure all employees are effectively using the digital tools provided I think it's it's it's it's not one size fits all you have to have content on there that that people want to see you know um we we have a luckily we supp luckily or not we have a younger generation and we a lot of employees below the age of um you know maybe 40 I think um our average age is around 35 you know so it's quite young um but um we try and make it very simple and I I know it sounds ridiculous single sign on just do it just do it I know I know it's hard and I know it could be timec consuming and I know know you're you might have a fight with somebody in it trying to get it done but just do it because if you have single sign on um and if it's mobile adaptable as well that really helps you know you can get onto the platform that employees can get on to our platform via the mobile um so they don't have to be looking at content at their laptops they can be doing it on the train on the way home and they can be doing it anywhere they want to um but I I think trying to make things as easy and trying to make it as interesting as possible the internet thing is a real thing you know people can't find anything they just stop looking but if you have everything under one little box that people can go into um we find that that um that we don't get any quams about them if we have older and um older employees who maybe do have a little bit you know they're not really into the apps and things of that um we find our youngsters are very good at helping out they love to show off how good they are at technology you know so it's it's um um or if anybody's any questions it's we we don't get a lot of user ability questions you know it's it's um because I think we we're trying to find that right um level of easy to access and and interesting um and I think it work it's working at the minute anyway of course that has to be changed next year but you know um it it helps I think making easy and accessible so is it yeah yeah okay right we're going to move on to some questions that come in now uh so you can have a rest which the first one's for me so it says how do we get access to the digital gym and meditation well um from the New Year in B touch there will be a new well-being Suite of options for your employees so look out for that it looks really good actually um so free for them to access part of the service uh right you didn't get much of a rest um they sure you don't to T that answer really there's not much more to say is it's amazing though definitely amazing um okay so where are we going to go next so um this is to all of us I think so um see who'd like to answer it so it's great to have access access to so many well-being offers but how do you ensure that the company culture and Leadership allow the time for employees to prioritize this we'd like to have a go at that I'll start yeah I think it we kind of referenced this a bit at the beginning didn't we I think it is around that kind of senior stakeholder not just engagement but obvious consumption of I mean we don't want to hear about our bosses bosses health issues but um I think it is important to get those really influential people those people that we all aspire to either be like or to impress to show us how they use those services so I think there's something very important about the demonstration of it so don't just do what I say but do what I do so I think that for me is really key and I think I've seen that in organizations where they've had you know senior spokes people talking about their own use of a service or their own experience of it um and also leadership within teams so if you know demonstrating to your team no it's okay for you to I I am going to go and go for a walk now or let's do this walking meeting or right we're all going to do you know it it needs to be led from the front it can't just be led by those involved in HR or benefits or well-being it needs to be really championed by the people that are driving our Workforce whatever that so that for me is for the most important thing great completely agree completely agree we started pre-co um obviously everybody's not back in the office yet 100% but pre-co one to one meetings walking meetings really really good you know so you're you're walking with your manager you're walking with your director having the conversation it you get to the point you're having it's a nice day might get a coffee I think that works really well and seniorly it's not easy at the start to get the full Buy in

I think you know and when we started looking at Mental Health it was still really taboo you know it's better now but it was like you know it was really taboo and we find that trying to get that involvement took a bit of influence and a bit of just wearing people down basically you know so it it it might it might not be it might take a bit of time but it will get there because I think the bit the senior um stakeholders realize that if they don't have good mental health in their teams um you know the business the team's not going to do well it's you know and it's all about that you know so it's um um but definitely the senior stakeholder is is is is good yeah yeah and I agree on that the leading by example is so important and also looking at when you're doing any events or activities that you're catering for not just during the lunch hour because that doesn't actually necessarily work for everyone so looking at how you can do things that all cat all different populations within the organization to help give everyone a chance to get involved I think that's really important too yeah great I I um I agree as well actually I mean I mean I remember you know you didn't want to leave the office before the boss left and what if the boss is still there at 9:00 I mean that's a bit of a pain isn't it so I think um you know leaders role modeling good well-being behaviors is really good and being really clear about how they're at their best because that's what it's all about isn't it if you need to go and put your kids up at 3:00 because that's going to make life better for you than I think you should go and do it or if you need to go for a run at 11:00 in the morning but I think leaders need to tell people what they're doing to um make it okay and people shouldn't need permission but they do and it's creating the right environment I think so think it's employees like adults you know if if somebody needs to go and collect their kids at school at 3:00 you know they're going to do their work later on that evening you know it's a bit and and that trust isn't it you know I mean hopefully that's what's come out of Co only everyone had to trust each other to get on with the job and many companies found themselves to be more productive in areas that they weren't before so let's not lose that trust it' be a shame to lose that wouldn't it as we go back to a degree of normality which has massive benefits as well yeah and from a business perspective if you say no then you're probably going to get no discretionary benefit you say yes you're probably going to get it back twice over it's just exactly anyway right we've got some more now uh Becky coming to you I've not read it so I'm not very good at reading as we've worked out already okay what do you advise to smaller companies that don't have the capabilities to do the on-site activities but still want to improve employee health and well-being

I think there's so many with the internet there so much access to content and information that you don't necessarily have to have a big budget behind it that you can you know you could put on a pilates class that could be purely somebody watching a live class online um you don't necessarily need to pay for that um and also we found that some of our benefits actually the employees actually have wanted to pay for them themselves so it hasn't actually cost us anything um but having options available and just making it easily accessible is really helpful to the employees great thank you very much yeah accessibility and knowing where to go is so important is it um Petra I've got one for you so have berer got uh any plans for personalized and precision medicine yeah we have I mean I think I'd like say we do a little bit of that already and trying not to be a one- siiz fits-all kind of health screening and assessment and personalizing our contracts but going forward we are really engaged in the kind of genetic science space so there's been lots of advances in genetic information and how that can be played back in times of healthare

so certainly now we already fund genetic testing for people that go through certain cancer diagnosis to make sure that we give them very specific treatment that will work for them so that's very personalized medicine um going forward though we are really exploring how we can use genetic information from individuals to more personalize and be more specific around risk assessment so um any one of us who might have been to a GP and is over 40 might well have had a GP told them whether they were a low or high cardiovascular risk that risk will have been estimated based on your age your current health any comorbidities and your family history and if you've got a family member that has a disease that will automatically be a kind of family history Mark I guess against your name if you want a better words but we know that genetics is more complex than that you may or may not have inherited that risk that may or may not have been an inherited problem um and so we're now looking at how we use genetic information from individuals to give a very personalized risk assessment of your risk of developing a disease in the future and we're looking at things like cardiovascular risk um breast cancer and and by using an individual's genetic information we expect to be able to tell them much more accurately

whether they're a normal risk or raised risk and if you're raised risk what that means to you might mean that you might engage AG in earlier screening or more frequent screening you might be more inclined to take on lifestyle advice so if you've suddenly discovered you got high cardiovascular risk yet no one in your family had a heart attack happens to be because they had another condition and so they didn't you might then be more actively engaging in stopping smoking or improving your activity uh if you find to have higher risk of breast cancer you might engage in breast screening earlier or more frequently um and conversely there are people that do walk around with a great fear of a disease because their dad had a heart attack at 40 and what they don't know is whether they're at increased risk or not and so what we're hoping is by using this kind of

Technology we're going to be able to tell those people yes you are higher risk which you knew already or in fact it looks like you're actually at a standard population risk so that improves health anxiety it might even reduce the number of tests and investigations they might go on or even the frequency of their screening so there's a real benefit from being much more specific when we start talking about the assessment of an individual's risk of getting a disease later on so we're really excited about that area and I think there'll be more to come from that hopefully next year yeah it sounds great really good um it's moving so fast isn't it isn't it um right I've got a last question you'll be pleased to here we're nearly done um so uh to whoever wants to answer it really um how can how can you put some of these ideas in place if the majority of the organization works from home

I think things like um the apps that are available now um they for instance the remote GP that's available via the berer app you don't need to be in the office to have access to that so I think using virtual Virtual Technology is probably one of the key ways to try and reach that wider population that aren't necessary all on site and in the same building

yeah we we had um um it was Fitness classes but they were all online you know so um um during Co and and that continued for some of the some of the people as well continued that so even having having video keep fit yeah um which really cool and then of course during Co you got to see everybody's houses didn't you people in their living room and their bedrooms um but there's and it's I think it's the communication as well you know and been able to do things um you know online um is makes things much much easier for for us anyway um because we're like we're scattered everywhere um in the UK as well you know so it's um you're trying to bring all the Regional Offices together

um and it would be the the apps I find are the best ways I think in some Way's actually using those tools it's easier for people who have geographically spread businesses to actually give the same offering to everyone yeah yes I I also think um there's some really simple stuff like not always being on teams or Zoom but actually having a phone call and going for a walk while you do a one to one or something like that can just mix it up a bit can't it if you're at home otherwise you never go outside I never go outside yeah exactly get chased by or what in fact I telling me to stand up now anyway thank you very much uh for really engaging conversation um this brings us to the end of the session um it's been a really good session

it strikes me that um things have changed so much uh since covid and the shape of uh of health care is changing and actually being proactive can really help our employees um get the best out of their lives not just the work environment so anyway um look out for our next event coming soon and remember to check out uh our Academy for practical health and wellbeing tools to support your people thanks for joining us today and uh have a great Christmas I guess not far off now thanks very much