Employers have solved the workplace healthcare problem. Now they face a much bigger challenge 

While UK employers have spent years expanding workplace healthcare benefits, new research suggests the next challenge is no longer what organisations offer employees, but whether employees experience any meaningful benefit from it. 

According to Healix Health’s The Hidden Workplace Healthcare Gap Report, a significant perception gap has emerged between employers and employees over the effectiveness of workplace healthcare, raising fresh questions about whether investment alone is enough to improve workforce health. 

The research found that 81 per cent of employers believe workplace healthcare support has improved over the past 12 months. Only half of employees agree. Among organisations employing more than 6,000 people, the figure falls to just 36 per cent, suggesting the gap widens as organisations become larger and more complex. 

The findings reflect what many workplace health providers are increasingly recognising across the sector: employers have become increasingly sophisticated in the benefits they provide, but employee engagement has not kept pace. 

Rather than judging workplace healthcare by the number of benefits available, employees appear to assess it through a much simpler lens: can they find support when they need it, can they access it quickly and does it improve their health? The consequences extend beyond employee satisfaction. 

More than a quarter (28 per cent) of employees said they had taken time off work during the past year because they were unable to access healthcare, while one in five reported reduced productivity. Seventeen per cent said their health had deteriorated while waiting for care. 

The findings also reinforce the growing role employers are playing in supporting access to general healthcare. 

More than half (56 per cent) of employees said pressure on NHS services has made them more reliant on workplace healthcare. Among employees aged 25 to 34 this rises to 62 per cent, while 58 per cent of those aged between 18 and 24 said the same. 

Perhaps most striking is the impact on younger workers. More than a third (36 per cent) of employees aged 18 to 24 said they had taken additional time off work because they were waiting for healthcare, while 30 per cent said their health had worsened during that period. Yet this is also the group least likely to understand the support available to them, with one in five (21 per cent) saying they do not know what workplace healthcare services their employer offers and 26 per cent unsure how to access their benefits. 

Despite years of employer investment, only one in four employees (25 per cent) said they had used workplace healthcare benefits to obtain faster access to treatment. 

For Ian Talbot, CEO of Healix Health, this suggests employers should shift their focus from simply adding more benefits to ensuring employees actually use them. 

“Putting the healthcare in place is the easy bit. Bringing cultural change to make sure people are using it is much harder.” 

The report argues that many organisations continue to judge success by the amount they invest or the number of healthcare products they provide. Employees, however, are more concerned with whether support is easy to find, straightforward to access and available when they need it. 

That distinction could prove increasingly important as employers face growing cost pressures. While 86 per cent of employees expect their employer to continue investing in workplace healthcare, two-thirds (66 per cent) of employers said they expect to reduce healthcare spending over the next year because of rising costs. 

Rather than expanding benefits further, Healix argues employers should concentrate on improving communication, simplifying access, strengthening manager capability and integrating occupational health more closely with wider wellbeing strategies. 

The report concludes that the organisations making the greatest progress in workforce health may not necessarily be those spending the most, but those ensuring employees understand, trust and use the support already available. 

The research is based on a Censuswide survey of 1,000 UK senior employer decision-makers and 1,000 employees working for organisations that provide corporate healthcare.