How to form a wellbeing policy that caters to a diverse workforce

Across different professions, there are massive differences in demographic. These differences come with varied wants and needs that can make implementing wellbeing policies difficult to navigate.

CU Health co-founder and chief executive Dr Patrick Aouad said that employers must embrace differences if they are to be successful: “Different industries have different demographic profiles. So, there are certain industry sectors that have more women than men; the age spread is different across different sectors.”

Age is one form of diversity that must be accounted for, said Dr Aouad. When implementing benefits, a young person may not be after the same things as an older worker.

“At different stages and phases of life, people have different healthcare needs and also aspirations and goals with respect to their wellbeing. And we know one thing, when it comes to an employee value proposition, whatever that perk is, it’s not really a value to the employee unless they perceive its value,” explained Dr Aouad.

“So, in order for them to perceive its value, it has to in some way be dealing with a personal problem that they have or a personal goal that they have. It might be to save money on fuel, or it might be to do yoga classes, or it might be to become fit and healthy and have convenient access to health and wellbeing services.”

While there are some overarching benefits that any demographic can utilise, a much more personal approach is to gauge opinions on a person-to-person basis.

Dr Aouad continued: “When we look at personalising our service, one of the first things we do is we identify on an individual basis, and this is completely confidential and only between the healthcare team and the member that uses our service, which is an employee, what their profile is, their wellbeing profile is and what their goals are.”

“And that means immediately we have an idea of what they’ve been through, where they’re up to and where they’re heading. And that allows our health coaches to personalise a plan and recommendations around that individual and provide the recommendations.”

Customising policy to fit the needs of individual workers means you are providing the best possible care for them. While it may not be feasible to speak to every person within an organisation, creating polls and surveys that gather this data can help to form meaningful benefits.

Alternatively, it may be better to offer a range of perks and benefits and allow staff to choose what suits them.

“It’s a solution-based approach, where every person has a different set of criteria and needs; we determine that early and then our team can customise exactly what’s required. And that means everyone can find value,” Dr Aouad said.

“So, if you just give everyone a gym membership, well, some people don’t like gyms, and some people don’t want to exercise that way. Whereas if you provide people with a whole raft of things, whether it’s family planning, whether it’s for headaches, whether it’s cancer screening or an annual health check, whether it’s to improve your sleep, everyone’s going to identify different areas that resonate with them, and our service efficiently aims to identify that and then go forward from there.”

The transcript of this podcast episode, when quoted above, was slightly edited for publishing purposes. The full audio conversation with Patrick Aouad on 9 May is below, and the original podcast article can be found here.