London is home to the healthiest employees, according to Britain’s Healthiest Company, an initiative from VitalityHealth, while the North East is home to the least healthy employees.
25,000 employees across 82 companies in the UK took part in the survey which analysed lifestyle, behavioural and clinical risk factors to access employee health and understand what companies should be focusing on to improve workforce wellbeing.
Factors analysed include weight, height, diet, exercise, smoking, alcohol intake, mental health, cholesterol, blood glucose levels and blood pressure, as well as how often people attend health screenings.
The results reveal that London has the healthiest employees, with 24 percent of the capital’s employees being at risk of a health issue. London employees also come top in nutrition with 48 percent at risk compared with Northern Ireland at 60 percent, physical activity with 28 percent compared with the North East at 45 percent, and Body Mass Index (BMI) at 11 percent compared to the North East at 28 percent.
Findings also showed that employees in the North East are most at risk of developing health problems (31). 28 percent of employees have an unhealthy body composition (BMI), 45 percent are not partaking in enough exercise, 6 percent show symptoms of depression, 26 percent consume too much alcohol, and 29 percent have high blood pressure.
Greg Levine, director of corporate healthcare at VitalityHealth, says:
“Health and wellbeing is playing an increasingly important role in how businesses maximise the productivity and happiness of their workforces. Clearly there are some areas across the UK where companies need to do more but if businesses are able to develop a culture in which wellness programmes are integrated into day-to-day life, the benefits for both employees and the company itself will be quickly realised as productivity is improved and the cost of absenteeism is reduced.”
On average employees across the country have a health age that is three years and 10 months older than their chronological age. In London employees have an average health age of three years older than their chronological age and the North East has an average health age of five years and one month older.
The UK’s least healthy employees by region:
| Rank | Region | % at risk of health issue |
| 1 | North East | 30.5% |
| 2 | Wales | 29.2% |
| 3 | East Midlands | 28.1% |
| 4 | Yorkshire and the Humber | 27.7% |
| 5 | West Midlands | 27.6% |
| 6 | North West | 27.2% |
| 7 | Northern Ireland | 26.9% |
| 8 | South West | 26.4% |
| 9 | South East | 26.3% |
| 10 | Scotland | 26.2% |
| 11 | East of England | 25.8% |
| 12 | London | 24.2% |
Amie Filcher is an editorial assistant at HRreview.
My observation is that the range of values are not that great between highest & lowest (24% to 30%). I’m surprised that the lowest is 25% – not very encouraging! It would be interesting to see how the values were distributed by region.
I wonder how this maps against more subjective measures like happiness…