What’s the question for employers: “what does illness cost us” or “what does health buy us?”

The Problem: Human resources and benefits managers could make a stronger case for the value of health and wellness benefits by making senior leaders’ key business performance metrics – measures of what their organizations actually do, rather than simply the costs of doing it – a central outcome when reporting the results of their health-related initiatives. However, these professionals typically do not:

• Understand what business performance metrics resonate with senior leaders.
• Have a clear idea of what metrics to focus on and how to relate health data to business performance.
• Know who within their organization to consult for guidance.

The Solution:

• Make the business case for workforce health in terms of the impact on core business processes, not just on cost savings.
• Communicate with senior leaders and operations personnel to understand the metrics they use to evaluate how well different people or units with revenue-generating functions are performing. The earlier this is done when planning an initiative or evaluation, the better.
• Learn how leaders generally connect human capital to business results when the process is not straightforward.
• Determine whether to link health to individuals or to business unit performance and plan your program evaluations accordingly.
• Incorporate critical business metrics into reporting on an ongoing basis.