Employers struggle with relevancy of health and wellbeing communications

Almost half (45%) of employers are finding it difficult to ensure that health and wellbeing support is communicated in a way that is relevant to their workforce, despite a wide range of communication tools at their disposal.

A survey of 500 employers by insurer Towergate Health and Protection found employers had found it harder to target health and wellbeing communications at specific groups of employees since the pandemic began.

Although 56% have changed the way they communicate health and wellbeing support since Covid hit, with 62% concentrating more on digital information delivery, many were still finding it difficult to spread key messages.

Hybrid working was a major factor behind this, with 44% of employers stating they found communication had become more difficult now that employees were working from home all or some of the time.

Forty per cent of HR professonals polled said they did not promote the health and wellbeing support their organisations’ offered as much as their colleagues would like them to.

Towergate Health and Protection CEO Iain Laws said: “The clear need for health and wellbeing support to reach more people on a more basis means that effective communication of this support is critical.

“Our research tells us that employers are finding it harder to target specific messages at specific groups of their workforce.

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“This has been the case since the start of the pandemic and is perhaps an indication of the challenge in keeping up with the rapid changes in working habits. Health and wellbeing support and its communication must be agile to adapt to these altering needs.”

The company reiterated the need for health and wellbeing services to be tailored to individuals, but recognised that communicating these to different groups was difficult. It recommended the use of apps, hubs and other online options to cater for all types of communcaton preference.