When employees are happy, healthy and engaged, companies perform better. Yet many companies still don’t place the importance on employee wellbeing that it warrants. Here are 12 facts to shock them into taking action…

1. Half of UK workers have experienced poor mental health in their current job – Mind

2. Employees with high wellbeing are 35% more engaged with their company than employees with low wellbeing – Engage for Success

3. 96% of senior leaders report feeling burned out – Harvard Medical School 

4. 1 in 4 employees is struggling in silence with problems such as anxiety, low mood or stress – Mind

5. 78% of companies identify stress as a top workforce health risk (higher than obesity, smoking and poor nutrition) – CDC

6. FTSE 100 companies that prioritise employee engagement and wellbeing outperform the rest of the FTSE 100 by an average of 10% – Business in the Community

7. Mental ill health costs employers the equivalent of £1,300 for every employee in the UK workforce – an estimated £34.9 billion each year – Centre for Mental Health 

8. More than four in five businesses (84%) say that they feel their employees are less comfortable talking about mental health compared to physical health at work – CBI

9. 45% of employees agree that an employer-sponsored wellness programme would encourage them to stay in their current employment situation – Principal Financial Well-Being Index

10. 54% of British full-time employees feel their employer does not care about their health and wellbeing – Investors in People

11. 46% of employees feel more stressed at work than they did 1 year ago – Specialists4Protection

12. Every day last year that someone was absent from work due to ill health cost UK companies on average £720 and the average number of days lost to ill health per employee was 5.2 days– CBI

So, there’s no time to delay in putting in place a wellbeing strategy that works for the needs of your employees.