Benefits of Employee Wellness Programmes from a Mining Perspective: Views from a Mining Company in Zvishavane

Abstract

The paper explored benefits of EWPs among mine employees. The study was grounded on qualitative methodology and adopt a semi structured interviews, as data soliciting technique. The researcher used semi-structured interview guide. Purposive, simple random and convenience sampling was used in the study. The findings indicated that the mining employees are of middle aged group who are productive and males are than females. Managers poorly participated in the study which could mirror their participation in the EWPs. Participants who had more years with the mine participated more. The overall objective of EWPs is healthy and productive workforce. EWPs were found to be are part of a mining company’s organisational strategy. EWPs is housed under Medical Services Department. Work performance and productivity were found to be the overall benefits of EWPs through healthy employees and reduce time loss due to injury or sickness. The findings showed increased awareness on unhealthy practices such as excessive drinking alcohol, smoking and lack of regular exercises among mine employees. health outcomes such as weight loss to EWPs were found to be the driven force behind EWPs. incentives were seen as a motivator to attract employees to EWPs.