Health and holidays the wellbeing balance

 Are you self employed? If so, do you take a holiday in the summer each year?

A recent study has shown that many self employed people never take a holiday - and while the majority still do take some time off now and then, theres still a large minority who dont. Its highly possible that theres a link between the lower number of self employed people taking holidays than employed workers, and the similarly low level of sickness absence too.

Of course, for people who run their own business its understandable that time off is at a premium. And that goes for time off ill as well as it does for holidays. This is one of the reasons that self employed health insurance can be useful for people whose business is a one man operation, since it means that treatment can take place more quickly and when treatment is required then if youre covered for that particular treatment then theres no need to worry about waiting lists and the delay that they cause to treatment.

And obviously - given the current economic climate since 2008 - businesses have to be their most competitive and efficient - and that means making sure staff are as healthy as possible. If youre self employed then its imperative not to let wellbeing take second place. There are bigger SME businesses also providing medical cover for staff as a benefit - and studies have shown that health and wellbeing benefits really do have an effect on staff engagement, productivity, and even profitability.

Figures for the year so far that levels of self employment continue to rise - its believed that this could be due in part to people going freelance after redundancy. So now is as good a time as ever to look at the challenges facing self-employed people and ways in which this mode of employment - which is very important to the economy - can look to improved work/ life balance and wellbeing.