Monthly Health Topics

Physical fitness can play a vital role in your workplace. It can enhance the health and safety of your employees, make them more engaged at work, and improve their overall job satisfaction. Regular exercise can reduce stress, improve sleep, and lead to fewer missed work days.¹ It can even help prevent costly conditions like heart disease and type 2 diabetes.^2,3

Exercise also boosts brain health and emotional resilience. It improves memory, attention, and focus and reduces anxiety and the risk for depression.^2,3

Explore our Healthy Lifestyle Toolkit for fitness resources you can use to improve your employees’ well-being.

Heart disease is one of the costliest medical conditions for employers — and its costs are expected to keep rising.⁴ Because people in the U.S. spend a third of their waking hours at work, it’s vital that workplaces support heart-healthy lifestyles.⁵

You can take an active role in your employees’ health by promoting healthy eating, exercise, stress management, and sleep habits, and encouraging regular screenings for blood pressure, cholesterol, and diabetes. In addition, research has shown that fulfilling social relationships are crucial to preventing heart disease.⁶ By supporting the best physical, mental, and social health of your employees, you can have a significant impact on one of the costliest illnesses facing the U.S. workforce.

Explore tips and tools to help support your employees’ heart health.

Obesity is a costly condition that impacts the health and well-being of roughly 30% of the American workforce.⁷ Along with direct health risks like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and stroke, obesity drives absenteeism at work and increases medical claims.⁸ It can also be associated with mental health conditions like depression and anxiety.⁹ In 2023, these direct and indirect costs added up to an economic impact of $425.5 billion.⁷

To help your employees maintain a healthy weight, there are ways you can build physical, mental, and social health consciousness in your workplace. Support healthy eating by providing nutritious foods in break rooms and meetings. Integrate opportunities for walking, stretching, or meditation into the workday. Promote resources for nutrition education, weight management, and food security. You can even incentivize healthy habits with team challenges and rewards.

Explore how you can help your employees achieve their weight management goals.

Unmanaged stress can lead to employee burnout. This decreases productivity while increasing health care costs and turnover.¹⁰ Primary sources of work stress include excessive workloads, poor management, and unclear expectations and communication.¹¹

Creating a culture of well-being at work can keep your employees at the top of their game. Companies with cultures of well-being experience a more stable and engaged workforce and are more innovative, agile, and customer-oriented.¹²

Learn strategies to support mental health, encourage work/life balance, and build emotional intelligence among leaders and managers with this on-demand webinar and mental fitness guide. 

Investing in employee mental health is not only the right thing to do, it also directly affects your bottom line. An employee experiencing mental health issues can cost over $4,700 annually in missed days of work and over $5,700 in turnover expenses.¹³ Often a worker’s decision to leave or stay is made based on the company’s support for mental health and well-being.¹⁴ Plus, employees who are psychologically healthy are more likely to be motivated and engaged — and find innovative ways to contribute to their organization’s success.¹⁵

You can help create a culture that truly supports wellness by reducing stigma around needing and getting mental health care — and making it easy to access.¹⁶ For more guidance on how to support mental health in the workplace, explore our mental health and wellness page.

Studies show that companies investing in cognitive health programs see a positive correlation between employee happiness and business success.¹⁷ While cognitive function can be affected at any stage in life due to stress, burnout, and lack of sleep, age-related cognitive decline is also on the rise. With an aging workforce, it’s important to consider long-term brain health alongside short-term mental fitness.

Research indicates that nearly 1 in 9 adults aged 65 and older have Alzheimer’s disease,¹⁸ with many individuals experiencing cognitive decline before formal diagnosis.¹⁹ By providing tools and resources for brain health, you can help employees of all ages stay sharp, engaged, and resilient.

During Brain Awareness Month, take meaningful steps to foster a brain-healthy workplace. Promote open conversations, provide education on cognitive wellness, and offer resources that support mental agility and long-term well-being. Learn more at kp.org/brainhealth, the Alzheimer’s Association, and other health organizations.

Summer has arrived. Your employees are spending more time outdoors and traveling for vacations. Help them stay healthy by sharing messages about sun protection and travel safety.

The sun’s ultraviolet (UV) radiation is the main cause of skin cancer. To promote prevention, post flyers with sun safety tips, offer sunscreen samples and skin cancer screenings on-site, and provide a shaded outdoor area for breaks.

Encourage healthy traveling. Urge employees to stay up to date with immunizations, refill their prescriptions, and pack for the weather. And remind them to download the Kaiser Permanente app to make getting care convenient.

Vaccinations can help prevent illness, outbreaks, and absenteeism at your business — especially during peak respiratory virus season. Each year, vaccine-preventable diseases cost $27 billion in treatment.²⁰ When employees stay healthy, you boost engagement and save on health care costs.²¹

Employers can increase employee vaccination rates by educating employees on how to get vaccinated. Higher employee vaccination rates are linked to higher rates among their family members.²² Higher rates of vaccination not only boost immunity across households but also support a healthier, more productive workforce.

Encouraging recommended immunizations can help protect your team — and your bottom line.

Learn more about seasonal vaccines.

Nearly 25% of the U.S. workforce is now 55 or older, a percentage that’s expected to rise through 2030.²³ One positive aspect of this trend is that work teams made up of multiple generations tend to be more productive.24 Older workers also have lower turnover, injury rates, and job stress compared with younger workers.^24,25

Fortunately, by taking steps to support an aging workforce, employers can promote wellness and engagement among all their employees. For example, fostering ergonomic workspaces and motivating employees to add movement breaks to sedentary tasks helps your entire workforce stay limber. Providing opportunities to learn new technologies and prioritizing flexible work arrangements — like remote options and flexible schedules — helps everyone achieve a positive work-life balance. You can also promote a healthy lifestyle by sharing tips on maintaining a healthy diet, daily exercise, and regular checkups.

Women make up 47% of the U.S. workforce.²⁶ But barriers like inadequate caregiver support, lack of scheduling flexibility, and an unfavorable workplace environment can decrease engagement and increase turnover — costing you more than $8,000 per employee per year.²⁷ These barriers also contribute to women being 35% more likely to skip or delay getting medical care, increasing long-term health care costs.²⁸ The good news is that businesses that invest in creating inclusive workplaces also increase women’s engagement and health — and their own bottom line.

For help on how to create a work environment where women thrive, read this guide on championing women’s health in the workplace and watch this on-demand webinar on women’s wellness.

Diabetes is a top driver of employer health care costs. Annual costs for employees with diabetes average $19,700 — 2.6 times higher than for their peers.²⁹ That cost increases by over $12,000 per employee when diabetes isn’t well managed.³⁰

Helping employees manage their diabetes is a workforce health imperative because of the significant impact diabetes places on employer-sponsored plans. With nearly 1 in 6 U.S. adults diagnosed with diabetes — and another 1.2 million more diagnosed each year — the need for effective support has never been more urgent.³¹

Investing in diabetes care today can help protect your workforce’s health and your organization’s bottom line.

You can learn more about supporting a culture of health in the workplace by exploring our healthy lifestyle toolkit.

Encourage your employees to take care of their minds as well as bodies to help reduce stress and maintain mental health. Share the resources below and those in the “getting active” and “building a healthy mindset” sections of the Healthy Lifestyle Toolkit with your employees.