By Jaine Konarik
Remedial Massage Therapist at Life Ready Physio + Pilates Warwick

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The cost of poor staff productivity

It is well reported that staff absenteeism and presenteeism (at work, but not fully functioning due to a medical condition) is on the rise. Current estimates indicate that unscheduled absences are approximately 10.5 days per employee per year — an increase of 16% from 2006 to 2010, and a cost of more than $7 billion per year. 

Presenteeism is estimated to cost in excess of $26 billion per year. In addition, body stressing and mental health claims accounted for nearly 75% of workers’ compensation costs in 2009/10.

The reasons for these high and alarming numbers have been attributed to low levels of employee engagement and poor leadership and management practice, amongst others.  Furthermore, an increase in absenteeism has been linked to a decline in employee productivity, reduced staff morale, higher staff turnover and increasing staff costs for cover and replacement. 

According to the Australia’s Workers Compensation Statistics 2016/17, body stressing accounted for 38% of all serious claims. The median cost of a claim was $8600, with injury and musculoskeletal claims being the most common. Mental health issues were the most common work-related disease claims.

Corporate health and wellness: increasing staff productivity with massage

There is now a growing body of evidence to support the premise that corporate health and wellness programs are a good investment with an excellent ROI. For example, they can reduce workers’ compensation claims by over 40% and sick leave by 25%.

Providing access to health and wellness resources not only assists your staff, but will have a positive impact on the organisational health as well. 

Are you looking for ways to reduce the impact of both absenteeism and presenteeism at work due to stress, musculoskeletal injury and mental health illnesses such as depression and anxiety? There are a number of treatment and management options available. 

One remedial therapy that can positively impact, treat, improve and manage all of these conditions is massage. Clinical evidence clearly supports the positive results of massage to: 

• Reduce stress
• Reduce depression and anxiety
• Relieve headaches
• Improve brain function and job performance
• Lower blood pressure
• Ease muscle tension, reduce symptoms of RSI
• Improve joint mobility, function and range
• Enhance muscular performance

Whilst massage alone will provide the benefits listed above, a comprehensive program that includes other remedial therapies such as physiotherapy and supervised exercises like Pilates will ensure long term outcomes in the case of musculoskeletal trauma. 

Introducing massage into the work environment is an easy way to improve employee and organisational health and wellness and as a consequence, increase staff productivity. 

Massages can be performed in a seated massage chair, at the employee’s workstation (in the case of customer service centres for example) or on a massage table. Just 15-45 minutes of massage is enough to evoke the desired benefits.

Learn how Life Ready Physio can help you improve productivity and maintain corporate health here. To enquire about remedial massage therapy in your workplace, please feel free to contact us or make a booking here.