Survey: Employers feel responsible for worker health and well-being

Transamerica Institute survey also says older workers are benefiting from changing business environment

August 16, 2022

A new survey from Transamerica Institute and its Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies (TRCS) finds that – post-pandemic – employers feel more responsibility for the health and well-being of their employees. Employers also say they’re still having a hard time recruiting new workers.

Emerging From the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Employer’s Perspective examines the impacts COVID-19 on the benefits employers are offering to attract and retain employees.

“Employers have been navigating the complex issues in a rapidly-changing environment, especially in managing the needs of their workforce,” explains Catherine Collinson, CEO and president of Transamerica Institute and TRCS. “However, they can be doing even more to support their employees.”

According to the survey, 81% of employers feel responsible for helping employees maintain their long-term health, 72% cite one or more major concerns about employees’ mental health, and 47% say they are having trouble finding new employees.

Collinson says that employers believe that better compensation and benefits packages can be a win-win for them and their workers. “It can help employers attract and retain talent while providing employees income, work-life balance, and the ability to save for retirement while protecting their health, well-being, and financial situation.”

Catherine Collinson of Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies at Marketplace Studios in Los Angeles, CA.

She adds that the pandemic has really inspired employers to adopt new business practices and look at things differently.

“Working from home or other flexible work arrangements have proven workers can be just as production. What’s so exciting about this is that it opens up a whole new realm of opportunity in terms of inclusivity.”

Changes in Business Practices Bode Well for Older Workers

“The time may have come for age-inclusivity in the workforce,” Collinson tells me.

For example, an older worker who is also a caregiver may not have been able to go to work every day in an office before the pandemic. That has changed.

“Now that remote work arrangements are widespread, it opens up flexible schedules with employers recognizing the importance of work-life balance to find and keep workers. In many ways, it continues to bode well for older individuals who are looking to stay in the workforce longer. Between updated business practices, as well as widespread labor shortages, employers are starting to tap into the potential of older, experienced employees.”

For the survey, employers were asked how much consideration they were giving to older workers since the pandemic began. They said:

29% – A great deal of consideration
30% – Quite a bit of consideration
23% – Some consideration

Collinson says the good news is that “70% – seven in ten – of large employers say they’ve given a great deal or quite a bit of consideration to age 50 plus job applicants. So, that’s a big deal.”

You can read more the full Emerging From the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Employer’s Perspective here.

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Dana Beth Ardi

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Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.