How you can promote employee wellness and reduce the risk for burnout and claims.
Healthcare facilities are charged with offering the physical, mental, and emotional care that their patients need. This responsibility often puts workers under extreme stress and accelerates feeling of employee burnout. Unfortunately, heavy workloads and ever-increasing expectations only contribute to feelings of stress and can lead to dangerous accidents. While having the right workers compensation insurance will ensure that injured employees have the support that they need, it’s better to be proactive when it comes to preventing burnout and subsequent injuries. Here are some of the things that you should do to promote workplace wellness at your healthcare facility.
Understand Major Risks
Before you can develop a strategy for taking care of your staff, you need to understand the risks that they face on a daily basis. Some of the most common healthcare risks include the following:
- Exposure to infectious diseases and pathogens
- Injuries from lifting and transporting patients/equipment
- Needle injuries
- Exposure to allergens
- Workplace violence
- Physical/mental injuries and illnesses related to high-stress
Because the risks are vast and ever-changing, the healthcare industry remains one of the most dangerous—outpacing even construction, mining, and forestry when it comes to workplace-related injuries.
The Impact of Wellness Programs
Workplace wellness programs provide a promising solution to address healthcare risks. Generally, these programs consist of several components that target various employee health and safety concerns. Components usually include the following:
- Healthcare screening programs
- Discounts on gym memberships and weight loss counselling services
- Access to workplace massage therapy
- Stress management/reduction programs
- Access to healthy foods
- Nap rooms
- Fitness tracking programs
When healthcare employees are healthy and happy, they have an easier time managing their stress and are more likely to perform at peak levels. This, in turn, reduces the number of accidents and injuries that take place in the workplace. While implementing these types of programs does require some investment, the reduction in workers compensation claims more than makes up for this cost.
This is how establishing an employee wellness program at your healthcare facility can help you cut down on stress and costly insurance claims. Looking for other ways to reduce your workers compensation insurance costs? Then contact the experts at PMC Insurance Group. Our experts are ready to assist you with all your commercial insurance management needs today.
