India’s Wellness start-ups seeing new avenue of growth in corporate wellness programme

As Globalization and urbanization converge in India, corporate sector is gradually picking Workplace/Corporate Wellness Programme as a weapon to beat the soaring work pressure along with the Government.

While, Indian government has created a separate ministry to monitor the health and wellness of the country under AYUSH, big corporate are opting to introduce professionally designed Corporate wellness programmes in the organisation, making it mandatory for all to attend.

How it works?
Under the Corporate Wellness Programme, big organisations/ MNCs either hire a professional organisation to set up wellness activities for their employees or the HRs organise activities like Zumba, Aerobics, fitness competitions among the employees, giving them awards and recognition for their stamina and fitness quotient.

What it does?
Beyond increased employee’s productivity and cost saving of medi-claim etc, visionary employers are realizing the value of their employee health, which helps in enhancing morale and reduce organizational conflict.

Known as an excellent device of change and life enhancement beginning right at work, these wellness programmes are creating a lasting impact on the employees, making them company loyal and increase employee retention rate.

Accenture wellness program is another great corporate health package for their employees. In fact, Accenture has been accredited with being the healthiest employer in the U.S and is taking this ahead in India as well. It takes care of the standard modes of treatment as well as alternative methods like homoeopathy, etc. Basic investigations and body scans are a routine, but employees have access to customized websites that assess their health, coaches them to lose weight, track their diet, etc.

Start-ups encashing on the opportunity
Aims to offer a quicker yet easier solution of corporate wellness, without hampering daily work routine of the employees, wellness start-ups like ZooJoo.be have come up with a cloud-based platform which uses gamification to engage people in healthy habits.

“On our platform, if someone wants to do yoga, I can connect him to the yoga instructor that your company might have appointed to do some traditional wellness programme. So, we do not want to create our network as there are already existing networks and players, we look at ourselves as an aggregator for them in terms of service. Our value as a platform if you really look at is how a habit is formed and how people really do that by taking virtual goals for which they also need adequate guidance from the dieticians, doctors, nutritionists etc, for which again we connect them with each other,” said Avinash Saurabh, CEO, ZooJoo.be.

Similarly, another Bengaluru-based company named Truworth Wellness offers numerous wellness programmes for corporate hubs. Established in 2008, the company offers general programmes that revolve around- How to eat right? How to get fit and how to stay happy? Its current clientele includes Infosys, Wipro, HP, Merck Pharmaceuticals, Whirlpool, CSC and Pearson.

“Corporate Wellness business is picking up now in India. In the last decade, we have seen the growth of jobs in our country, equipping youngsters with better salaries that would have led to deviated lifestyle for many. Wellness and Disease Management companies are here to stay for long to take care of the population health,” noted Rohit Chohan, Head -Corporate Wellness, Truworth Wellness.

Successful corporate wellness programmes
In India, corporate hubs like Tata Consultancy Services’ (TCS), Apollo Life, Larsen & Toubro, Wipro and Accenture. Explaining the benefits of the same, Accenture shared couple of programmes designed and run successful in the organisation.

“To help employees alleviate stress, Accenture conducts Stress Buster Sessions, which includes Yoga classes, Tai-Chi, Aerobics etc. These are open for employee nominations and the classes are held in the company premises. Employee health and safety is of utmost significance to Accenture and we have set-up clinics called ‘Wellness Centres’ offering medical help and assistance during the work timings and extends round the clock in most of the cases,” said Parag Pande, Managing Director, Human Resources, Accenture India.

Outcome
Employees are the pillars on which an organisation stands. If happy and healthy, employees would willingly make an extra-effort to boost their organisation’s growth. Thus, Corporate Wellness Programmes are could be that engaging and encouraging factors which not only brings health to the employees, but made them glued to the firm for years leading to continuous growth. Also, it will boost the growth prospects of Wellness Industry as a whole after getting adequate back support from big corporate.