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The effect of on-site wellness programs on absenteeism, presenteeism, stress and health care costs

The prevalence of health risk behaviours is growing among South African employees. The deteriorating health of the public and the costs there off, which arise from making unhealthy choices about one’s lifestyle, are a major cause of many preventable Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD’s). The effect of these NCD’s on an organisation can result in employees’ ill health and negative stress, which in turn can lead to absenteeism, presenteeism and thus decreased productivity. Several studies propose that the absenteeism together with presenteeism can cost an organisation up to three times as much as medical costs with stress also being flagged as a severe work-related hazard. Literature shows that ill health affects employee ability to function optimally, thus indirectly affects productivity. Studies on on-site wellness programs, although they report savings in health care costs and increase in productivity, their true effectiveness is not sufficiently measured. To add to this, there is a paucity of work that exists regarding the benefits of on-site wellness programs in South Africa. It is suggested that data about the effect of successful wellness programs does not always make its way to academic literature, thus the observed shortage in investment on such programs from South African companies. This study we aim to find out the effect of on-site wellness programs on absenteeism, presenteeism, stress and health care costs. The results oppose what literature findings report. Reasons for these findings are therefore speculated.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:nmmu/vital:27570
Date January 2016
CreatorsGxolo, Zingisani Mzontsundu
PublisherNelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Faculty of Business and Economic Sciences
Source SetsSouth African National ETD Portal
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis, Masters, MBA
Formatxiii, 109 leaves, pdf
RightsNelson Mandela Metropolitan University

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