It is estimated that the Indian corporate sector spent more than $2.5 billion on employee wellness initiatives in 2025.1 But then why is it that we regularly come across news reports and stories on employee burnout and health crisis in the corporate sector?
A recently released corporate wellness index endorsed by the Confederation of Indian Industry concluded that corporate India is reeling under a serious health crisis with at least 70% of employees suffering from at least one major lifestyle condition like diabetes and cardiovascular complications.2,2.1
Gap between formulation, design and implementation
The data clearly suggest a flaw in the formulation, design and implementation of these health and wellness initiatives that end up making them ineffective without any or minimum tangible results.
The most frequently proposed solution is to ensure that these interventions are designed and implemented in a manner that captures the essence and ethos of the organisation and also addresses personal concerns and apprehensions of individual employees.
Measures such as the following can further help keep the workforce motivated to remain active participants in these health initiatives:
1) digital empowerment and clinical accuracy.
2) active participation from the top leadership and senior management;
3) confidence-building initiatives for employees; and
4) timely feedback and engagement with employees.
Apart from the core objectives of health and wellness, employee health policies can play a positive role in:
1) improving health awareness among employees;
2) enhancing productivity and workplace morale;
3) retaining talent and preventing employee attrition; and
4) lowering healthcare costs in the long run.
Scale without proper governance doesn’t work
Lofty ideas might seem good on paper but won’t fly if implemented without proper management involvement, employee compliance and a transparent governance framework.
Here, the fall of Haven Healthcare provides a cautionary tale. The ambitious employee healthcare project involved three behemoth global corporations — Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JP Morgan Chase - in 2018.
It was the brainchild of three powerful corporate leaders: Jeff Bezoz, Warren Buffet and Jamie Dimon. And well-known surgeon and author Dr Atul Gawande was the CEO.
But Haven crawled and struggled for almost three years and was finally laid to rest in 2021 due to multiple reasons including poor administrative decisions, strategic errors, lack of co-ordination between leadership and poor progress in its objective of extending healthcare to its employees.(3)(3.1)
Need for integrated, holistic wellness programmes
A holistic employee wellness initiative is the outcome of the seamless alignment of its stakeholders — mainly from the clinical, digital and operational segments involving trained healthcare professionals, IT experts and HR executives.
The company should make the effort to ensure that health-policy compliance becomes an easy and motivating experience for the employee. And this cannot be achieved without ensuring clinical, digital and operational governance allowing the streamlined implementation of the health policy and functioning of onsite health centres.
Relevance of clinical governance
Today, a paradigm shift has already taken place in corporate employee healthcare services. Just see how most clinical teams aligned with corporate firms as part of their employee healthcare programmes include dedicated doctors, nurses, preventive health screening staff, and health and wellness coaches.
One successful example of effective clinical governance is HCL Healthcare. A major corporate health and wellness solution provider in India, the company has already implemented a robust healthcare system with a tight clinical governance framework to ensure maximum employee benefits.
It has divided its clinical operations under six pillars:(4)
1) Patient safety: Being ready to tackle any emergency with quick and effective response.
2) Clinical effectiveness: Adhering to the standard treatment protocols and conducting periodic reviews and clinical audits.
3) Staff competency: Regular training-enhancement modules and performance reviews to improve procedural efficiency.
4) Health data security: Total compliance with data security and privacy laws.
5) Risk management: Regular health screenings and risk assessment.
6) Patient experience: Feedback and suggestions are collected and collated for further fine-tuning the system.
Digital responsibility and commitment
Digital governance has emerged as one of the key concerns of corporate health policies, especially when it comes to data safety and privacy issues.(4.1) Most corporate companies across the globe no longer maintain the physical health data of their employees. Instead, they go with exclusive wellness and health mobile applications for their employees to support key health needs from insurance to booking doctor appointments.
But to make e-health policies succeed truly, the following aspects must be rigorously implemented:
1) Consent factor: All health-data collection and collation must be done after obtaining consent from the employee.
2) Data security and privacy: Health data must be stored with maximum cyber security; unauthorised access should not be granted to any individual or entity.
3) Credible partnerships: In case the digital segment is being outsourced, the employees need to be taken into confidence.
4) Updates and upgrades: The digital platform should address healthcare issues on a real-time basis and be compliant for regular updates and upgrades.
5) Personalised user experience: Always adopt a personalised approach to connect better with employees.
Putting efficiency into operation
Operational governance is the most vital cog in the corporate wellness machine — it is crucial for ensuring the successful implementation of any workplace health initiative. This is where the accountability of every other stakeholder involved gets fixed, assessed and evaluated to either fine-tune or make the necessary course correction in the formulation of the health policy. Ideally, it should aim to:
1) To ensure the health policy is in sync with the company values.
2) To keep it employee friendly to ensure maximum participation.
3) To audit and assess performance of the healthcare and digital personnel involved.
4) To encourage engagement and interaction between senior leadership and employees.
5) To instil an overall culture of maintaining good health and happiness on campus.
6) Setting up frequent preventive health screening camps.
Emergence of Unified Health Management Systems
The Indian corporate sector has always been receptive and adaptive when it comes to policy-based health reforms. This explains the widespread acceptance of Unified Health Management Systems (UHMS), especially by large corporations with massive workforces.
As the name suggests, these systems are unified health and wellness platforms that include almost everything from insurance coverage to periodic medical checkups and health assessments with a special focus on employee wellness with the aid of digital tools and applications. (5)
One advantage of this system is that the very idea of seamless clinical, digital and operational governance sort of comes embedded within the unified platform, making workplace implementation easier and more effective. The overall experience of the employee also gets enhanced, making them more compliant and invested in the health programme. This, in turn, ensures both long-term efficiency and sustainability.
In future, UHMS is expected to involve the use of artificial intelligence to further streamline health operations and run predictive algorithms to create health maps of each employee. Also look forward to a stronger alignment towards mental health and the inclusion environmental and climatic factors affecting personal health.