Time to coerce staff to be thin?

Sep 12 2007 by Iain Laing, The Journal

RECENTLY I received an email from a colleague entitled Obesity Guidance, which for a man with my physique felt close to workplace harassment. Fortunately, it was a genuine report published by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) on the burgeoning cost of meeting the healthcare needs of the growing number of people who are simply too fat for their own good. I confess it made uncomfortable reading for me.

But perhaps most interesting is the broad assessment from Nice that the workplace is the right place to tackle this issue.

This would see businesses compelling employees to make certain dietary choices (through vending machines and staff canteens); providing incentives such as travel policies that favoured walking and cycling; investing in facilities such as staff gyms and showers; and throw open the doors to allow employees to see health professionals in the workplace.

Part of me baulks at the assertion that employers should be expected to nanny their workforce in this way. It feels instinctively wrong that personal choices about diet and exercise should be part of professional life. However, I can’t get away from the fact that many employers are already taking the steps Nice advocates. This is rarely seen as mollycoddling employees.

Instead it’s viewed as enlightened self-interest – measures that improve productivity are perceived as an additional employee benefit in that all-important battle for talent and help protect investment in every business’s most important asset.

It is likely we will see the issue of health in the workplace begin to grow in importance.

All workplaces went smokefree last July, ostensibly to protect the innocent passive smoker, but by implication reducing the opportunities for all employees and customers to partake in the evil weed. And we will see the demography of our region change, with an ever larger proportion of the workforce in their fifties and sixties, when age-related illnesses become more likely.

It’s not for Nice to compel businesses to introduce measures that coerce staff to make healthy choices. But perhaps it is for businesses to consider what they might do to provide a workplace that gives everyone the opportunity to look after themselves. Though it pains me to say so, it might make sound business sense.

Andrew Sugden is director of membership at the North-East Chamber of Commerce.