We spend more of our lives working than anywhere else. Someone who starts work at 18, and works ful time until they retire at 65, can expect to spend more than 75,000 hours in the workplace. That represents more than one in ten hours across our lifetime, but our conception of health at work rarely extends beyond avoiding hugely damaging accidents.

While many businesses have recognised the importance of supporting workplace health, there are too many employees who sti l do not have access to these benefits. 10 million people in the UK work in a business which doesn’t provide basic health protection interventions such as health checks or vaccinations – putting them at real risk of health problems. Even fewer have access to positive interventions such as subsidies to keep fit, or external support around their mental health.

There is a better way, which would deliver impact for employees, employers, and the Government. If we can transform our workplaces into drivers of good health – a place where you get healthier, rather than somewhere where you hope to avoid harm – then we could unlock a major part of our productivity crisis.

Key recommendations

Working with business, we have identified five steps which would have an immediate and profound impact on workplace health:

1. The Government should set a mandatory national Health and Work Standard, setting a minimum level of support which employees should be entitled to.
2. Sick pay should be available from day one of a person’s employment, with pay from the first day they are off sick, and businesses incentivised to pay a living wage to employees while they are off.
3. HR professionals should be upski led, with support from occupational health specialists, to ensure that they are able to embed health improvement across their organisations.
4. Government should explore ways to incentivise employers, particularly SMEs, to invest in their workforce in the short term, enabling them to reap the long term rewards of higher productivity.
5. Government should work with the ONS and business to create standardised data colections on workforce health, alowing the impact of interventions to be properly monitored and evaluated.