Well-being signpost Looking for better ways to reduce employee health risks and lessen medical costs? Support from leadership and the organization is the key factor, according to a new study from the Health Enhancement Research Organization (HERO).

The study, "Workplace Well-being Factors that Predict Employee Participation, Health and Medical Cost Impact, and Perceived Support" and published in the American Journal of Health Promotion, found that "organizational and leadership support practices are among the strongest and most consistent predictors of an organization's ability to: drive participation in employee well-being initiatives; influence employee perceptions about their employers; positively influence employee health outcomes; and drive down health care costs," according to the news release.

"While other factors such as incentives can effectively predict completion of health assessment questionnaires and biometric screenings, organizational and leadership support was the only factor that significantly influenced employee health risks and positively impacted medical costs," said Jessica Grossmeier, the author of the HERO study. Based on responses from 812 organizations that collectively employ more than 4.7 million people, the researchers aimed to pinpoint how specific best well-being practices lead to desired outcomes.

Grossmeier, who is also the research organization's vice president of research, said that of 58% of the organizations that responded for the study were in the service industry. The remaining 42% were split between manufacturing businesses and other industries.

HERO noted that previous research studies it has done have shown a connection between workplace well-being best practices and employee health and business outcomes, but that this newer study "is among the first to identify specific practices associated with a broader set of outcomes."

In the news release and an accompanying scorecard chart, the research organization used its 2020 first quarter "HERO Scorecard Benchmark database" to show the organizational and leadership support best practices companies use most often. (The chart information, it said, reflected data through the end of 2019, which represented more recent data than used for the study.)

The organizational and leadership support best practices best practices used ranged from 95% of companies implementing workplace policies that encourage healthy behaviors to 75% encouraging leaders to participate in programs to 64% demonstrating organizational commitment to employee well-being through company mission/vision statement, organizational goals and value statements, and senior leadership communications to 46% consistently communicating about well-being programs in targeted ways to different employee groups.

"Corporate leaders who want to improve workplace well-being should be prepared to practice what they preach," the release said.

According to a covering page from the research organization, the study conducted relied on "formal statistical analyses on the data" collected from the more than 800 organizations that had completed "the full version 4 of the US HERO Scorecard." It further said that the four factors used were grouped into the following categories of employer practices:

• Organizational and leadership support • Incentives • Program integration • Program comprehensiveness

"This research is significant for employers who want to move beyond the completion of health assessments and biometric screenings to create a true workplace culture of health," said an email from a press relations firm that sent out the research organization's study information.

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