Employee health and well-being: A tough investment decision for transportation leaders or a no-brainer?

Whether you’re talking about trucking, aviation, or rail transportation, many of the workforce challenges are the same—aging workers, rising salary expectations, and stiff competition for entry-level candidates. There’s no quick answer for these problems, but one often-overlooked approach can be a great help. Consider building an integrated health, well-being, and safety program with a partner who offers medical-grade solutions, a simplified management experience, and ways to overcome the barriers to care that affect mobile workforces all too often.

Of course, management can’t offer these programs at the expense of other critical aspects of running a company. Rising infrastructure and maintenance costs, technology upgrades, and volatile fuel prices already put a pinch on revenue. So, any expanded health and well-being solution must prove its value to the bottom line as well as to employee satisfaction. Done correctly, it can do both.

6 reasons to invest more in health and well-being

Health and well-being programs aren’t just about employee health and well-being. They’re about company health and well-being, too. In fact, a well-designed program can do many important things for employers.

1. Increase productivity – absenteeism costs employers hundreds of billions of dollars per year in the US. Helping employees stay healthier can reduce missed days, improve safety, and stretch the benefits of employee training longer. 
2. Lower costs – 55% of healthcare spending is for people 55+ despite them only making up 31% of the population. Preventative health actions now can reduce the costs of treating chronic conditions or injuries later.
3. Reduce regulatory surprises – when workers are proactive about their health and well-being, it helps reduce the risk of failing mandated annual physicals and unscheduled screenings for drug or alcohol abuse.
4. Retain valuable employees – 48% of truckers who switch carriers leave for better benefits. Strengthening your program can help increase employee satisfaction and keep drivers working for you.
5. Attract new hires – 92% of workers say it is somewhat or very important to work for an organization that values their well-being. A strong program can make you an employer of choice in the industry.
6. Help workers extend their careers – if older workers minimize the impact of chronic conditions through preventative care, they may be able to delay retirement or disqualification and increase your options.

Clearly, there’s an upside to investing in your health and well-being program. But, as it turns out, there can be a downside to not investing. Because staying with the status quo can open your company to risk.

5 risks of not investing in health and well-being

If health and well-being doesn’t feel core to your operations, consider how failing to keep your program competitive can increase your risk in both the near and long term.

1. Safety issues – compared to other US adult workers, over the road truck drivers have higher rates of heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, and obesity, and physical health challenges increase the risk of crashes.
2. Diminishing contributions – without preventive health and well-being support, employees may have a harder time doing the job or even passing mandatory annual physicals.
3. Increased turnover – since the number 2 reason people leave jobs is for better benefits, not staying competitive could lead to attrition and the need to hire more frequently.
4. Increased costs – hiring in a competitive market is expensive, and then there’s the added costs of training and waiting for them to become fully productive.
5. Employer brand issues – in a competitive market, reputation matters to prospective employees—companies without a strong benefits package and low turnover rate are less attractive.

As you can see, there are many reasons to consider investing more in your health, well-being, and safety program. But it also matters how you approach it. Results are better when leadership has a clear understanding of how an improved program can align with and support the company’s strategic goals. Part of that is making a careful estimate of the potential impact on attrition, hiring, and productivity to ensure everyone is prepared to handle the changes. And finally, consider preparing a data-driven projection of your new program’s impact on future healthcare costs so you can accurately judge the value.

Perhaps the most important consideration, though, is finding the right partner. The pace of business never slows, but this is a change that shouldn’t be rushed. Encourage your team to look beyond the promises of smaller, single-solution benefit providers. Instead, engage sophisticated benefits consultants or large, integrated providers of proven health and well-being solutions. Either will have enough case studies and program use data to help support your decision process.

Health, well-being, and safety are important elements of a life well-lived. The efforts you make now to improve all three for your employees can resonate for decades to come.