The business case for health and wellbeing

The annual economic costs of sickness absence and worklessness associated with working age ill-health is estimated at over £100 billion (Working for a healthier tomorrow 2008).

The average cost of absence per employee in the UK is estimated at £692 per year and on average there are 7.4 days lost per employee per year to sickness absence (CIPD 2009).

A healthy workforce is a sustainable workforce; it makes common sense to ensure that, wherever possible, the people who make up our organisations are in good health and feel good about themselves and their work environment.

Professor Dame Carol Black is the National Director for Health and Work. In March 2008 'Working for a healthier tomorrow', the first ever review of its kind, was presented to the Secretaries of State for Health and for Work and Pensions, Alan Johnson and James Purnell by Dame Carol Black. As part of the review PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) were commissioned to consider the wider business case and specifically the economic case for employers to invest in wellness programmes for their staff. Thanks to this work there is now a strong business case for investing in workplace health and wellbeing initiatives.