How to create a preventative health strategy in seven steps

Step‑by‑step guide: How HR can build a preventative health strategy

We’ve explored why a preventative health strategy matters; next, we’ll take you through the seven steps to creating one.

Step one: Conduct a workplace health assessment

Your preventative health strategy must meet the specific needs of your business and people, so it’s vital to create a workplace health assessment checklist before deciding on solutions.

Analyse current health risks, absence data, and employee feedback to understand the issues your employees are facing. From there, you can identify high‑impact areas, such as excess stress, MSK issues, chronic conditions, or prevalent lifestyle risks.

Alongside reviewing the absence data you already have, run anonymous surveys, review any occupational health reports you may have and any usage trends from your Employee Assistance Programme (EAP), if you already have one. 

Step two: Define clear health and wellbeing objectives

Once you’ve identified the main culprits, it’s time to determine how to improve employee health. At this stage, you must also decide on your organisational priorities to ensure your employee wellbeing programme aligns with them. Any HR health initiatives should help to achieve your goals.

For example, if you’ve identified that a high proportion of absences are related to workplace stress, your strategy should include ways to reduce stress while helping employees become more resilient.

Sometimes it’s best to start small, focusing on one element to prove your strategy is effective before evolving to include other areas. Identify KPIs and use SMART goal-setting to clarify and help you prove the ROI of your preventive health strategy.

Step three: Build a multi‑layered preventative health plan

Applying a multi-layered approach to your preventative health plan enables you to manage and review the success. Break your strategy down into the three areas below:

1. Primary prevention: Includes education and lifestyle programmes – the ways employees can make changes and help themselves. Primary prevention may include running a support programme to encourage employees to quit smoking, creating a lunchtime walking group for office workers, or gamifying active lifestyles for hybrid and remote teams. Primary prevention also includes any ergonomic changes required to the working environment.
2. Secondary prevention: At this stage, you’ll need to include wider workplace risk assessments, but it’s predominantly about early detection. Embed a health screening programme to identify any potential illnesses or the early onset of disease. Health screening can encourage employees to make healthier decisions based on what could happen if they continue on their current path. They can also save lives by detecting high-risk diseases before they become more serious or untreatable.
3. Tertiary prevention: This third stage is less about preventing the issue from occurring and more about supporting those who need chronic condition support and are returning to work after a period of illness. An occupational health assessment will identify ways to support those with a chronic condition, ensuring the working environment doesn’t negatively impact it. A bespoke return-to-work pathway for each employee will help prevent the illness from recurring. For example, for an employee off due to an MSK issue, you’ll need to focus on ergonomics and their physical environment. For an employee returning after burnout or stress-related illness, you should ensure that working practices and support are in place to prevent excess stress from becoming an issue again.

Step four: Choose evidence‑based interventions

There are many paths you can take, so it’s always best to follow the evidence.

• Mental health initiatives: If stress is making your employees ill, then stress management policies and practices will alleviate the issue. Add in resilience training, and you’re doubling down, addressing the cause while also giving employees the ability to handle life's stresses more effectively.
• Physical health programmes: Fitness challenges are a great and fun way to encourage your workforce to become more active. Gamification really does work, especially when prizes are involved. Ergonomic assessments and ‘fixes’ are also impactful. Simply changing the style of an employee’s mouse and providing wrist support for those who are constantly typing can make a significant difference – as the person writing this over 3,000-word blog can attest to!
• Nutrition and lifestyle support: What we put in our bodies makes a difference to our energy levels and health. Remove unhealthy snacks from the office and replace them with fruit. Share recipes for healthy meals for time-poor families or those on a budget. Highlight how many holidays an employee who buys multiple packs of cigarettes a week could have gone on for the same price, alongside the health implications, and run a programme to help them quit.
• Preventative screenings: The earlier you detect an issue, the more likely you are to tackle it before it becomes serious. Preventative screenings can detect high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and even the risk of diabetes. All of these can be managed through lifestyle changes if detected early.
• Digital health tools and apps: Digital health tools, like those available through Online GP and EAP, make it easier and faster for employees to receive help – mental and physical, getting them on the path to recovery more quickly than going through their NHS GP. An accessible Online GP could save UK businesses £1.5 billion in lost time, since employees can use up to half a day when attending a doctor’s appointment in person.

Step five: Engage leadership and build a health‑positive culture

You can’t simply put a plaster over a culture of poor wellbeing and expect it to stick. Change must come from the top and be ingrained into every area of the business. Think of it this way: you have problems with stress-related absences, so you run a stress management workshop – that’s your plaster, and it could help the healing process. However, if leadership and management create a culture that rewards people who take on more than they can manage and work extra hours, there will be no change. Just lots more plasters that keep falling off.

Leadership must model health-positive practices, such as implementing and respecting boundaries, going for a walk at lunch, checking in with people to see how they’re doing, and fostering a culture of openness.

Communication matters, and it must be two-way through nurturing a culture of psychological safety so employees feel that they can share their health concerns and set boundaries.

Step six: Implement, communicate, and promote the strategy

It’s vital to put as much thought into launching and running the programme as you do into creating it, especially when it’s going to take a cultural shift. Make a big splash at the launch, communicate any new formal policies, run challenges – get people excited.

Driving engagement is a continuous process, not a one-off, so creating a wellbeing team that can take ownership of creating engagement initiatives can really help, especially because it’s peer-led. 

Consider also the different demographics within your business and tailoring the message for on-site, hybrid and remote employees to ensure your approach is inclusive and equitable.

Step seven: Measure impact and continuously improve

A great launch and ongoing engagement plan put you in a strong position, but it’s crucial to measure impact regularly, evolve, and continuously improve.

Always refer to your key metrics, whether that’s absenteeism rates or employee satisfaction. If they’re going in the desired direction, you’re on the right track; if not, identify what changes to make to get there.

Use employee surveys to learn what works for them and what they’d like to see more of. They’re the people you’re supporting, so you should always gauge their thoughts.

The world is constantly changing, employees are affected by external and economic influences, and they’re progressing through different milestones. Your preventative health strategy and employee wellbeing programme should evolve with them. 

Monitor and iterate, keep abreast of new solutions and continually gather feedback to refine your strategy.