Productivity Management Congress

Good morning.

Thank you for inviting me to speak today - it's a pleasure to be here.

Thanks Sean Sullivan for your kind introduction.

And welcome to Auckland - welcome to New Zealand. Kia ora koutou katoa.

Many of you will remember your parents telling you to "get out of the house and do something."  As an adult, it's perhaps a shock to look back and realise what good advice this was - and still is.

"Get a job" they said.  Also good advice.  In fact, we now know that the benefits of having a job go beyond the obvious ‘more money to spend and less time to spend it'.  For both paid and unpaid work, good surroundings can greatly increase a person's mental and physical health. 

And the workplace is also an effective place to promote health and prevent chronic diseases.  Workplaces that create an environment that supports employees to be active, improve nutrition, give up smoking and the like, can improve the health and lives of the employees.

You can understand then, that I was very pleased to be invited to open this, the New Zealand Health and Productivity Management Congress for 2010.

I'd like to welcome another of our distinguished international visitors, Dr John Lang from Australia. 

I'm sure you will be looking forward to hearing Sean and John speak later this morning. 

I'd also like to acknowledge Professor Grant Schofield and Dr Clara Soper - thank you for inviting me to officially open the Congress.

Your focus today is 'New Approaches for Improving Employee Health'.

It is a very interesting programme - the organisers have clearly put a lot of work in putting this congress together - I can see you are going to have a stimulating and rewarding day of it.

This is the first meeting of its kind in this country to build into human resources policy the importance of improving employee health, for greater productivity.

And New Zealand needs greater productivity. Our ability to sustain a strong and growing health service and indeed economy depends on it.

All over the world, governments are facing significant pressures in Health - and this will only increase. This is a very challenging portfolio area.

People are living longer -- and whatever our age, we all want and need more and better services. In the future there will be proportionately fewer taxpayers supporting our older population.

Health services face increasing costs with newer and newer health technology.

And we are living in difficult economic times - which will continue to be with us for quite some time yet.

This government has increased Vote Health by an additional $1.3 billion since we came to office. And we expect that investment to keep growing.

But productivity and value for money are still critical.

DHBs are making these choices everyday, and it is a challenge.  But every dollar we can save in Health goes back into Health.

Because the goal is, better service for all New Zealanders.

Everyone has a role to play in this and I am particularly pleased to see the New Zealand private sector stepping up to invest time and resources into keeping employees healthy - like you are today.

Employer leadership is important to improving the health and well-being of employees. 

And employers need to be able to access expertise in the private sector to improve workplace health.

We spend a large amount of time at work - up to half of our waking lives. 

Our workplace can be a source of stress.  It can also have negative impacts on health like promoting inactivity (for example sitting at a computer for long periods). 

This isn't good for our health.  Chronic diseases like depression, unhealthy weight, diabetes or injuries influence an employee's ability to work. 

So can infectious diseases like the winter ‘flu.

Workplaces that provide protection in the way of vaccinations or that increase well-being and promote healthier choices amongst their workers can turn these negatives into positives. 

Take  Carol - not her real name -  who got  involved in the 10,000 steps programme when her organisation signed up to that very good programme run by Vitality Works one of the partners organising this Congress today.

Carol was reluctant at first and a bit suspicious of all the hoopla.  With a history of unsuccessful weight loss programmes and diets she knew she had to do something about her weight but had never been able to make it work.

The programme proved to be the catalyst; it came at the right time and provided the right support.  More than a year after the programme finished, Carol walks every day, has lost 30kg and continues to lose weight.  This is without question a huge improvement in her quality of life with benefits for her employer as well.

You could also use the analogy that on average it takes 14 attempts to give up smoking, i.e. the key thing is to keep giving people the opportunity and incentive to try.  This is what these programmes do.

They also make business sense.

Effective workplace health initiatives can greatly reduce absenteeism and they can increase productivity of staff when they are at work.

By way of an example an evaluation of Sport Hawke's Bay's Workfit programme showed it can reduce absenteeism by a third, slow staff turnover by up to 26%, and reduce days off due to workplace injuries by up to 67%.

Workfit says it can reduce on-site smoking by around 7% and nearly double staff participation in fitness activities.

The overseas research is very clear.

The link between health and business level outcomes is now well established.

Dr Grant Schofield tells me that simple interventions such as influenza vaccinations will keep staff healthy and at work as well as giving companies returns of around five dollars to every one dollar spent.

And 'Presenteeism' - which is lost productivity due to the poor health of staff who are present but not firing on all cylinders - is around six times worse than that caused by staff not turning up for work at all. 

Healthy people have better concentration, which leads to higher output. 

Helping staff to give up smoking, get fitter, and lose weight gets results.

The NZ public service gave employee health a go with a centralised programme launched by the previous government called "Walk the Talk".  This initiative aimed to encourage the state sector to lead by example by promoting healthy nutrition and physical activity amongst its employees, including developing healthy nutrition and physical activity action plans for their organisations.

In its first year "Walk the Talk" had a budget of $250,000.  They ended up spending $5000.  So there was plenty of talking but not much walking!   Which goes to show, you can't run this centrally, you need activated employers taking action within their own businesses.

Programmes like 10,000 steps, Workplace Challenge, and this Government's own Green Prescription and BikeWise improve people's lives, like Carol's life has been improved.

They also improve their productivity at work - with excellent estimated returns to their employers. 

The Canadian Government's corporate wellness programme returned $1.95 - $3.75 (C$) per employee per dollar spent. An American review of workplace health programmes found that the economic return on investment ranged from $3.30 to $5.96 (US$) saved for every dollar spent.

As well as that, people who are achieving are happier and have better morale. 

And healthy, happy, motivated staff has to be a winner for any employer.

This is smart business for employers, investing in the people who are at the heart of the job they need doing. 

This is clearly a growing industry worldwide and this government welcomes the consideration of such an industry group here in New Zealand.

I would like to wish you a productive and successful congress and all the best in your endeavours in this area in the future.

It gives me great pleasure then to officially open the inaugural New Zealand Health and Productivity Congress.

Thank you