1 in 2 corporate workers in India said their company does not provide any kind of wellness programme for their workforce, recent survey by Assocham found. According to the study, about 52 percent respondents revealed that their firm does not run wellness initiative, while the other 62 percent said current organisation’s wellness programme needs improvement.

This finding, which is unfortunate, underlines the importance for more firms need to invest in employee’s health and wellness programme. From the survey conducted across sectors including FMCG, media, IT/ITeS and real estate, it is suggested that the adoption of corporate wellness programme can save Indian organisation’s income up to $20 billion by 2018 through a 1 percent reduction in absenteeism rate.

The latest Assocham’s paper entitled ‘Corporate Wellness Programme Benefits to Organisation and Economy’ found that wellness programmes can help improve chronic and lifestyle diseases faced by corporates and employees. On an average for every rupee being spent on employee wellness initiative, the employers will get Rs 132.33 as they save on absenteeism cost, and Rs 6.62 more as reduced health care costs.

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Additionally, the report also noted that while majority of sample population (83 percent) said they were willing to contribute part of their monthly salary to fund in company sponsored wellness programme, the remaining 17 percent seem to be reluctant in participating at such initiative.

Among IT/ITeS staffs, as much as 93 percent respondents feel that wellness programme initiated by the company is a motivating factor for them to work. On the other hand, about 75 percent workers in FMCG sector feel it acts a motivating, while 25 percent consider it as a depressing factor.

However, the chamber noticed that despite availability of preventive health care benefits through medical plans provided by the company, most respondents do not really take advantage for getting routine health care examination. This condition is owing to the fact that some are actually not aware about the existence of such benefits, while some others tend to hesitate to ask, The Economic Times reports.

In its earlier survey, Assocham said a workplace wellness programme can increase employee’s loyalty, improve work performance, boost productivity, as well as reduce attrition rate.

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