Insight

Could your business benefit from a health screening?

Published

18 August 2025

Read time

4 minutes

Turning compliance into care: how health screenings boost wellbeing and cut costs

Health screenings are often seen as a compliance requirement, enabling an organisation to meet local legislation and cultural expectations. But, with today’s screenings delivering real value to employees and employers, it’s time to reframe this powerful health and wellbeing benefit.

Legal legacy

It’s easy to see why health screenings are linked to compliance. Around the world, they’ve often emerged out of health and safety legislation. For example, in the UK and Germany, employers must provide mandatory health checks where employees are exposed to hazardous substances or engaged in potentially hazardous activities.

Some countries take these mandatory health screenings further. In Japan, employers are legally required to provide employees with an annual health check covering everything from height and weight to chest x-rays and, dependent on age and gender, colonoscopy and mammograms.

Pre-employment screening is common around the world too. A health check is required before joining a company in Japan and it’s a mandatory part of the visa process for expat workers across the UAE.

Beyond compliance

Meeting these local requirements is a must, but health screening can deliver much more than a tick in the compliance box. Rolling out screenings across the workforce offers a proactive way to help employees look after their health. As well as meeting employee demand for more support with their health, it can also deliver financial and operational benefits for the organisation.

These are some of the benefits of health screenings:

Health screenings are an inclusive health benefit. Unlike health benefits such as private medical insurance, there’s no need to be ill to claim: every employee can benefit, regardless of age, gender or the state of their health. 

A health screening can pick up an illness or condition long before there are any symptoms. This makes it easier to treat, reducing costs and absence, and delivering a better health outcome for the employee.

A regular check-up helps to put employee health on the agenda. Employees will share numbers, and the lifestyle changes they’ve made to improve their health. This personal insight can be a powerful way to support preventative health initiatives.

By picking up health issues early, employees can take steps to access treatment, if necessary, or make changes to improve their health. Both courses of action should result in less absence across the workforce.

Whether it’s cancer or something less serious, earlier interventions are usually lower cost in comparison to the cost of treating a more advanced illness or condition. This can help to control premiums on products such as private medical insurance.

By encouraging more engagement with their health, workforces become healthier. This can reduce the number of claims on products such as income protection, critical illness insurance and life assurance.

Offering access to health screening shows employees their employer cares about their health and wellbeing. Picking up just one cancer early or helping someone change their lifestyle to prevent heart disease sends out very positive signals to the workforce.

Family of four walking in nature, with parents giving children piggyback rides, smiling and enjoying the outdoors.

Tailored to your organisation

As every organisation is different, whether that’s the workforce demographics or the health screening legislation in the countries where employees are based, a wide variety of different health screenings are available. 

These include the checks stipulated by local regulation as well as more extensive screenings to give employees in-depth insight into their health and wellbeing. As an example, a health screen may include 40 or more different tests plus time with a medical professional to discuss any health concerns the employee may have. This – and the results – can then lead to more detailed assessments and referrals to specialists where necessary.   

Health screening programmes can also be tailored to employee needs. A few simple tests may be sufficient for a younger workforce while older employees will benefit from more thorough health checks or ones for specific conditions such as heart disease, cancer or menopause.

Next steps

Whether your priority is compliance, prevention, or both, health screenings offer a powerful opportunity to support the health and wellbeing of your global workforce. At Howden, we have strategic relationships with several of the health screening providers and can advise you on the most appropriate arrangements for your organisation. To explore how health screenings can fit into your employee benefits strategy, speak to Howden’s Global Benefits Management team today.

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