Corporate health and wellness programs across the world are been reinvented and re-modeled as lot of employees today are suffering from various chronic diseases as a result of their 9 to 5 jobs. Mostly employees from IT companies who are techies spend a lot of time in the office due to the kind of work they do, and this leads to various chronic illnesses such as back pain, obesity, hypertension, stress, etc. Corporate wellness programs encourage and support a holistic well-being of employees by creating an organisational culture of health. Health and wellness programs are started by companies because employers want their employees to stay healthy and in turn they know it would improve the productivity and bottom-line. Employees also feel motivated as they need to spend less, both in terms of money and time for their well-being. If your mind and body is healthy you inevitably become happy and productive.
Like many other western countries, India too is facing an epidemic of chronic diseases and conditions like obesity, hypertension, asthma, diabetes and heart diseases. Now-a-days we get to hear a lot of young people suffering from these chronic illnesses. According to a report by Assocham, lack of robust corporate wellness programs are costing Indian organizations up to $20 billion each year. Many chronic diseases are preventable and employers need to implement a holistic approach to corporate wellness programs in an influential way to educate employees on the importance of creating healthy habits and the benefits of sticking to wellness goals. To engage employees to wellness programs, employers should expand their approach from one size fits all, to a corporate wellness program that is tailored to the individual. Although, off late organisations have started to realise that a stress-free workforce is happy and more productive than an overworked workforce that puts its health on the line yet the number is still low in India.
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