Chris McSwain
President, Integrated Benefits Institute
Integrated Benefits Institute’s (IBI) 2016 CFO survey research showed that 83 percent of CFOs believe employee health is important to productivity and 94 percent believe productivity is critical to business success. While companies have significant processes in place to measure capital investment, revenue and operating expenses, they rarely consider people — human capital — in this light. Health care and benefits are viewed as operating costs, with little regard to the impact on productivity and ultimately revenue they may generate.
Our organization wants every company to unleash their potential by maximizing their 3Ps: people, productivity and performance. Just as the 3Ps are interconnected and interdependent, so are all the groups that must work together to maximize their impact. Employers want to know what good looks like and suppliers of workplace wellness goods and services need to show what value looks like. Frankly, so do the real customers both groups are working for: our workforce and their families.
More than the status quo
Let’s challenge ourselves to work across organizational silos and raise the bar from the status quo. Our C-suites should demand more guidance on how the decisions made annually about benefits, compensation, training, corporate social responsibility and more actually impact their workforce. As a result of these investments, businesses can realize improvements in productivity, performance, customer satisfaction, quality of products, employee engagement and cash flow. Through these key operational measures, employer investments in employee health and wellbeing have tangible business benefits.
Rather than getting employees to work longer hours (a poor prescription to improve performance), enhancing employee energy, resilience and vitality improves worker capacity and quality. Learning how to maximize the 3Ps so employers and providers can make better decisions is a business imperative. IBI’s research shows the typical CFO understands more than most might assume. They are often looking for the involvement of other functional areas within the company or their supplier partners to successfully unleash their organization’s potential.