Indian offices better on workplace wellbeing as per a new study

INDIA: As per a global study conducted by Steelcase on the theme ‘Wellbeing at Workplaces' with over 265 organizations, there is an alarming trend that becomes clear: people's health and sense of wellbeing is in decline throughout the world and is affecting business productivity and most importantly the bottom-line. As a global issue, this poses significant risks for employers, a press note underlined.

Steelcase's study is based on surveys over a four-year period measuring employee satisfaction, mobility and collaboration. These surveys asked nearly 30,000 participants to measure 30 workplace attributes, worldwide. Their collective responses provide a telling snapshot of what workers want, need and expect from the workplace.

Among some key highlights of the report, it was found that worldwide less than half of all employees say they work for organizations that promote health and wellbeing and that poor health and wellbeing among workers negatively affects individual performance and organizational productivity. For employers that provide healthcare benefits, it also results in escalating cost burdens.

The Steelcase team's research synthesis identified six dimensions of wellbeing that can be impacted by the design of the physical environment and revealed that 27 million working days were lost due to work related illness and workplace injury, $300 billion is the cost of stress in the workplace, 60 per cent of lost workdays each year can be attributed to stress and £8.4 Billion is the Cost of absenteeism.

It also shared that only 11 per cent of people are engaged in their jobs worldwide while 2.3 billion adults will be overweight by 2015, as predicted World Health Organization.

Talking of India specifically, the study indicates that Indian workers ranked their employers highest in the World Economic Forum study for promoting health and wellbeing. Indian business leaders regard compensation, work environment, career opportunities, and training as more important for competitive advantage than wellness. India's growing prosperity affects its workers' overall optimism about what employers are contributing to their wellbeing, it explained.