United Kingdom

Aon’s Global Emotional Health Survey 2019

Wellbeing as a whole is an area of growing concern for employers – and over the years, its definition has expanded. Today, financial, social and emotional health are all included under the wellbeing umbrella alongside physical health.

Wellbeing can be defined as ‘a state of balance that consists of having the appropriate resources, opportunities and challenges needed to achieve optimal health and performance for the individual and the organisation’. This is a definition we have used across Aon to encapsulate the ingredients and outcomes of employee wellbeing.

By putting in place initiatives and interventions to address the four components of wellbeing – emotional, physical, financial and social – employers can deliver significant organisational improvement.

When we carried out our Financial Health Survey in 2018, it became clear that poor financial health is closely linked to emotional wellbeing and has a significant impact on people’s emotional wellbeing, especially among younger employees.

As a result, we decided to carry out our first global Emotional Health Survey, which was conducted in the first quarter of 2019.

About the survey

> 168 respondents took part in the survey with the vast majority of the respondents (89%) working in HR, with 7% in finance roles and 4% responsible for risk. Organisations headquartered across 10 countries participated.

> 78% of those taking part include ‘wellness and wellbeing’ among their areas of responsibility. This in itself is worth noting, as a few years ago ‘wellness’ and ‘wellbeing’ were not terms that would have commonly have been used within job roles. 74% look after medical benefits, 65% are responsible for risk benefits – for example, life insurance or disability cover – and 60% manage retirement benefits.

> 62% of firms represented operate in 16 or more countries, and 46% of respondents are responsible for international locations outside their home country. For 47% of organisations in the survey, at least half of their employees are outside the country where they are headquartered.

> 54% of participating firms have 10,000 or more employees, with a quarter having more than 50,000. In total, the survey covers 2.7m employees.

> 17 industries are represented. 19% of the respondents represent technology and communications businesses, with financial services companies making up 17%. 10% are manufacturing companies, with the remainder covering a broad range of industries, including food, agribusiness and beverage companies, pharmaceuticals and chemicals, and professional services.