Yoga at the Glitch

Chronic illnesses amongst employees today are taking a heavy toll on businesses, budgets and the future planning of companies. When Employees of organizations suffer from lifestyle diseases, productivity at the companies they work for takes a toll through increased absenteeism. Annually the financial toll from employee absenteeism and poor motivation costs thousands of crores in lost productivity and revenue each year in India. Thankfully though, companies in India are waking upto this fact and addressing this problem through workplace wellness programs.

At Wellintra, we believe that we are at the forefront of this industry. We believe that Indian companies that address just three risk factors (modifiable employee behaviours) that contribute to chronic illnesses, companies can save a substantial amount in revenue per employee per year in healthcare costs and improvement in productivity. Companies may not benefit directly from savings in healthcare but the productivity gains are tangible and the results of sustained wellness programs are available for all to see. Over the years we have seen many companies have taken steps to reduce the prevalence of lifestyle diseases among their employees. A company might hire a Nutritionist to introduce healthy foods in it’s cafetaria in an attempt to fight obesity or provide financial incentives or rewards to employees to stop smoking. But more and more companies are now developing a systematic program for improving employee wellness. We help companies define metrics because without well-defined metrics it is difficult to develop a convincing business case.

Second wave of Wellness Programs

The new generation of wellness programs that we are helping launch at various companies is based on a more scientific understanding of the impact of behaviours on chronic conditions amongst employees as well as the efficacy of the interventions that are introduced to address them. We help companies develop programs that have measurable ROI’s.

An Integrated Approach

An analytics-driven approach while essential does not ensure success for a wellness program. In our opinion an effective wellness program must have three main characteristics:

1. It should be based on strong analytics.
2. It should be guided by a strategic vision with deep corporate engagement.
3. It must comprise of a portfolio of activities that focus on individuals and their environment both at the workplace and beyond.

The Starting Point

We help companies that are just about getting started in employee wellness to take a few simple but effective actions such as running weekly fitness classes and mapping the BMI and other health statistics of employees. We have seen that companies that are engaged in wellness for some time are learning from their experiences and striving to identify and target risk factors more accurately and in the process winning over top management and key decision makers. Companies that have become sophisticated about wellness are already seeing a healthy rise in productivity as well as a fall in employee absenteeism and per capita healthcare costs.

At the Glitch which is a Mumbai-based Digital Media agency, we have recently started a wellness program which involves regular yoga classes by our ace yoga instructor Bhumika along with other employee engagement activities. Watch some photos and videos of a session in progress below.

Watch a video of the Session below: