Dive Brief:
- Companies that invest in employee wellness also tend to see higher stock performance, finds a study by the Health Enhancement Research Organization (HERO), published in the January issue of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.
- Researchers looked at the stocks of 49 companies from 2009 to 2014 and found a correlation between those with wellness programs and those with stocks that outperformed the S&P 500.
- The study does not reveal the names or locations of the companies it tracked.
Dive Insight:
The study concludes, "Robust investment in a workforce health and well-being appears to be one of multiple practices pursued by high-performing, well-managed companies."
Whether there is any cause and effect relationship between employee wellness and stock performance appears to be a separate matter, but it's a possibility not being dismissed, as another group calls for businesses to publish aggregate employee wellness data for reasons that include providing a window to investors on threats to growth.
The HERO research found the companies that scored high for workplace health promotion practices had stock values that appreciated by 235% vs. 159% for the S&P 500 and outperformed the S&P 500 in 16 of the 24 quarters during which they were followed. The companies produced a comparable dividend yield, the study found, of 1.97% vs. 1.95% for the S&P 500.