ROI-T: Invest in her helps you calculate the expected business benefit from investment in health programs for women workers.
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Women workers’ health matters to your business
Evidence Backed Algorithm
This tool has been created as a result of a systematic review focusing on the return on investment as the outcome variable of providing SRH interventions in the factories, and its corollary variables like impact on absenteeism, staff turnover and productivity.
Sanitary Pads
Free Sanitary Pads to improve menstrual health and hygiene, reduce reproductive tract health issues and boost employees’ productivity
SRH Training
Company-based employees’ training on Sexual and Reproductive Health, to boost awareness and information on SRH issues and improve employees’ engagement
Subsidised SRH Training and Products
Mobile clinics regularly providing training, information and essential SRH services and products to employees in the factory/company
Peer Outreach
Training selected employees as Peer Educators, increasing awareness and information on sexual and reproductive health and services amongst their fellow co-workers and boosting employees engagement
Set Up Factory Clinic
Set up a factory-based health clinic, providing access to counseling and essential SRH service provision - from family planning information, to STIs management and to pre- and post-natal check ups
Free Iron Tablets
Testing women employees for anaemia, a serious public health concern, and offering free iron tablets to address the condition and improve women’s health and productivity
Life Skills Training
Factory-based training on various issues, from health and well-being to safety and occupation health, to empower employees and improve their engagement at work
Intuitive workspace to build custom projections
Our tool allows you to dynamically create, compare and organise your projections to make informed decisions in an interactive workspace with real-time updates and results.
Curated list of the most impactful programmes
Our tool features only those programmes where research demonstrates a clear link between their implementation and improved outcomes in terms of ROI, productivity, absenteeism and turnover.
Find a programme that suits your goals
With our tool, you can easily identify the right health programmes for your organisation and dynamically create projections based on your worker welfare objectives and budget.
Read Our Story
ROIT is a part of the UNFPA-managed Expanded Business Action for Family Planning (E-BAFP) program.
“..Occupational Health and Safety practices focus primarily on safety issues and fail to address the health needs, especially reproductive health of women workers.
.…[we need] to think differently about the role corporations can play, through their own operations, in expanding access to reproductive and other health services for both female and male workers.
…Corporations and their supply chains touch millions of poor workers in low and middle-income countries and directly affect worker access to general and reproductive health services.”
Dr David Wofford et al., “A call to action on women’s health: Putting corporate CSR standards for workplace health on the global health agenda”, Globalization and Health, 2016
Try the ROI Tool for free and get started on your programmes today!
This Return on Investment (ROI) Tool was developed by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Regional Office for Asia Pacific, to help businesses and companies understand the potential impact of implementing different health or health-related programmes for their workforce. The ROI Tool helps companies in making the business case for investing in workers’ health and well-being, demonstrating that this will not only improve the health of their workers, but will also strengthen businesses’ productivity and return-on-investment.
The ROI Tool is used to estimate the economic value for an individual company to invest in sexual and reproductive health programmes in the workplace, and provides economic estimates of the monetary benefit of investing in such programmes. The Tool advocates for the realization of sexual and reproductive rights of workers, the provision of services to tackle anaemia and improve menstrual health, as well as to reduce unmet need for family planning, because these changes can enhance the livelihoods of women and improve their health, not just because they can provide economic returns for businesses.
By showing that companies can reap positive economic returns, the ROI Tool strengthens the business case for private investments in sexual and reproductive health and rights, leading to a healthier, more empowered workforce.
Find out more about how to use the ROI Tool in the ROI-T Guide and the Research that informed its development.
About UNFPA
The United Nations Population Fund is the UN’s sexual and reproductive health agency, working in over 150 countries to end maternal deaths, unmet need for family planning, and gender-based violence and harmful practices against women and girls. UNFPA’s mandate is grounded in gender equality and human rights, guided by the Programme of Action forged at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD).UNFPA’s Asia-Pacific Regional Office covers 22 countries in Asia and 14 countries in the Pacific.
UNFPA works with governments and partners to promote universal access to quality, integrated sexual and reproductive health services. UNFPA also works to strengthen health systems, train health workers, educate midwives and improve access to the full range of reproductive health.
By 2030, UNFPA aims to:
End Unmet Need for Family Planning
End Preventable Maternal Deaths
End Gender-Based Violence and Harmful Practices
Find out more about our programmes and the countries where we work in here
About the UNFPA E-BAFP Program
The ROI Tool is part of the UNFPA-managed Expanded Business Action for Family Planning (E-BAFP) program. The goal of the E-BAFP program, supported by the United Nations Foundation and funded by Merck for Mothers, is to promote the scale-up of workplace women’s health programs, to empower women workers to become healthier and more productive members of the workforce, and to reduce barriers to access to Sexual and Reproductive Health services and information. By illustrating the benefits for businesses and companies of investing in workers’ health and well-being in the workplace, this ROI Tool will contribute to the expansion of services provided to factory workers across countries in Asia.
Since its inception in 2015, BAFP reached 1.2 million women with family planning information and services, through partnerships with 11 private sector companies in the Philippines. A clear business case for investing in sexual reproductive health programs was presented to partners, highlighting the returns in terms of workers’ wellbeing and increased productivity.
Now, the E-BAFP Program aims to reach up to 500,000 additional workers, both in formal and informal settings,with women’s health programs and information,by establishing partnerships with 30 new private sector companies in Asia. The companies will serve as models and mentors in driving other companies to establish their own women’s health and family planning programs, integrating family planning services and other sexual and reproductive health needs and demands (such as maternal health care, information and referral on testing and treatment of HIV and AIDS and sexually transmitted infections).
Achieve your goals and improve your workers’ health and well-being!
The Programmes
This Return on Investment (ROI) tool will help you build a business case for implementing health or health-related programmes for employees in your factory/company, particularly women employees of reproductive age. Using the ROI Tool will guide you in choosing an intervention which best suits your workers’ welfare objectives - please read more about the available programmes below.
Sanitary Pads
CATEGORY Menstrual Health
In this programme, free sanitary pads are distributed by the company/factory to women of reproductive age (18-50 years old). The provision of sanitary pads has been demonstrated to improve menstrual health and hygiene, leading to reductions in reproductive tract infections and other health issues. The use of sanitary pads also improves participation in work activities and reduces absenteeism due to menstrual health issues.
Sexual Reproductive Health Training
CATEGORY Sexual and Reproductive Health
As part of this programme, a training for employees is organised by the factory/company to provide information on sexual and reproductive health issues to workers. Topics covered include counselling and information on family planning and modern contraceptive methods, information on the prevention and management of Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) and HIV, as well as detailed information on the pregnancy and post-natal period. The training can also cover topics related to the prevention and response to harassment and gender-based violence. SRH training programmes have been demonstrated to positively impact employees’ productivity and the reduction in staff turnover.
Subsidised Sexual Reproductive Health Products & Services
CATEGORY Sexual and Reproductive Health
Through this programme, health partners like civil society or non-governmental organisations are contracted by the factory/company to regularly visit the workplace, provide training sessions on SRH issues to employees, and also offer on-site service provision for certain SRH services or products, like providing contraceptive methods or offering some essential SRH check-ups to employees. Partnering with teams offering Mobile Health clinics in the company/factory on a regular basis has been found to have a positive effect on employees’ productivity, who will have the opportunity to access certain SRH services without taking time off work.
Peer Outreach
CATEGORY Sexual and Reproductive Health
Thanks to this programme, a selected number of employees in the factory/company is chosen to be trained by a partner organization as “Peer Educators” on SRH information and services. The chosen employees will receive training on disseminating information on essential SRH information and how to access services, and they will work as peer educators in the company/factory to disseminate this crucial information to other fellow employees. They will act as catalysts to ensure critical SRH knowledge and information is disseminated among employees, with a demonstrated effect on improved workers productivity and reduced absenteeism and staff turnover rates in the workplace.
Factory Clinic
CATEGORY Health Clinic
This programme includes the set-up of a factory/company clinic, staffed with a nurse or midwife, where provision of essential SRH and First Aid health services can be carried out. Most factories and companies are already equipped with a first aid space: as part of this programme, a range of essential SRH health services is also offered to workers directly in the workplace. These can include counselling and family planning provision, antenatal or postnatal check-ups, consultations on other SRH issues and provision of information on how to access more specialised health services in hospitals or clinics outside the factory. Offering Factory Clinics that provide essential SRH services has a positive effect on workers’ productivity and triggers reductions in absenteeism and staff turnover rates.
Free Iron Tablets
CATEGORY Anaemia
With this programme, women employees are encouraged to get tested for anaemia in the factory/company, followed by the provision of free iron tablets for those considered anaemic in the factory or company (for example, through the first aid posts and medical officers on site). The prevalence of anaemia amongst women of reproductive age is a serious public health concern, with very high rates of prevalence identified in the general female population and in pregnant women in particular. Suffering from anaemia has serious effects on women’s health and strength, and therefore this programme can positively impact the productivity of those workers receiving treatment for this condition.
Life Skills Training
CATEGORY Life Skills Training
In a similar fashion to the programme on SRH training, this programme focuses on the organisation of a training for employees in the factory/company, particularly for women employees but accessible to all, where information on a broad range of life skills topics is provided. Topics covered can include general health and well-being sessions, nutrition sessions, some information on SRH health issues and access to services, as well as information on gender issues and safety and occupational health in the workplace. It has been demonstrated that providing this training to employees has positive returns on business metrics - productivity increase, and reduction in absenteeism and staff turnover.
How Were These Programmes Selected?
The programmes that were included into our ROI Tool have been carefully selected based on the latest academic and business evidence available on their effects on employees’s health and business productivity. The choice of programmes was refined using the results of a systematic academic review of over 100 academic articles and business papers, which focused on the relation between the provision of a number of women’s health and wellbeing programmes in the workplace and the impact on the return on investment as the outcome variable, and its corollary variables like absenteeism, staff turnover and productivity.
You can review the summary table below detailing the key results from the systematic review for each of the programmes included in the ROI Tool.
Programmes
Targeted Population
Increase in Productivity
Reduction in Absenteeism
Reduction in Staff Turnover
SRH Training
All workers, mainly women
9.5%
24.0% - 25.0%
6.0%
Peer Outreach
All workers, mainly women
22.0%
11.0%
4.5%-46.0%
Life Skills Training
All workers, mainly women
5.0%
62.0%*
23.0%
Sanitary Pads
Women in reproductive age (18-53)
-
21.0%
-
Free Iron Tablets
Anaemic women
7.0%
120h**
-
Subsidies SRH services and products
All workers, mainly women
15.0%
-
-
Setup Factory Clinic
All workers, mainly women
5.0%
1.4%
1.8%
*Entries with a range (i.e. X-Y) depict the lower limit (X) and upper limit (Y) respectively that is estimated for that variable.* Late coming. ** Attendance.
Check the ROI for the programmes that are aligned with your factory goals!
An Overview of the ROI Tool
This ROI Tool Guide will walk you through the different steps involved in using the ROI Tool, the different types of input data required from users, and will provide an explanation on how to interpret the outcomes and results of your ROI Tool projections.
An Intuitive Workspace to Help You Create Customised Projections
Explore, compare, and organise multiple projections all in one workspace as you decide what best suits your organisation.
Identify suitable health or health-related programmes based on your workers’ welfare objectives, to check their ROI and more.
Compare real-time values through a guided process and make the most of your workspace.
What is a Projection?
In ROI-T, a projection is a calculated prediction/estimation of the Return on Investment from implementing selected health programmes for your target workforce.
You can create multiple projections for different target groups or factories.
How should I name my Projection?
When you start a new projection, you are asked to name it. The main purpose of this is to allow you to easily organise and access your projections in the future.
While there are no rules on the correct way to do this, here are some examples:
Example 1
Organise by Time-Frame
Name Your Projection
2022 - Q2
Who is this for?
Unit 8, Mumbai
Example 2:
Organise by Personnel
Name Your Projection
Rachel Shaw
Who is this for?
Operators, MNB Division
Example 3:
Organise by Code
Name Your Projection
10004
Who is this for?
Unit 1 - Division 4 - All Workers
What do all the data fields and input sections mean?
The ROI Tool will ask you to fill in certain data fields to calculate the estimated ROI and other impacts for your selected programmes.
Company Baseline Details
In this section, the ROI Tool will ask for key data on your company: for example, the number of workers and particularly women workers working in your company, the average number of work days, rates of absenteeism and staff turnover.In addition, it will also ask for your company’s annual or daily production target: this could be equivalent to Standard Allowed Minutes (SAM) in garment and textiles industries, or to other similar productivity metrics in other types of manufacturing. All data will be stored securely on your password-protected workspace and on UNFPA secure servers.
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Costs of Programmes
In this section, you will be able to review some estimated costs related to the implementation of the programme(s) in your factory/company. All costs data provided by default are based on the review of available data on the implementation of such programmes in different countries and settings. The cost data provided are estimates, but these default costs for programme implementation can be changed by the users, if you have different estimates of the cost-heads for the various programmes.For some of the programmes, productivity loss costs will be estimated by the ROI Tool by calculating the time your employees will need to spend in the programme, and the equivalent costs in terms of loss of productivity. These productivity loss costs will be included in the total costs of programme implementation.
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Impact of Programmes
In this section, the ROI Tool will calculate the potential impact of your chosen programme on your company’s baseline rates of productivity, absenteeism and worker turnover. To run these calculations, the ROI Tool will ask you to fill in data on these key metrics for your organisation (productivity, absenteeism and turnover). The ROI Tool will calculate the potential impact of your chosen programme(s), to include results on: 1. The % Reduction in absenteeism/worker turnover post programme implementation 2. The % Increase in productivity post programme implementation
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Outcomes
In this final step, users will be able to review and download the results of the ROI Tool calculations for their chosen programmes. For each programme projection, users will be able to review results on key business metrics (productivity, absenteeism and staff turnover) and also the estimated Return on Investment (ROI) Values for their chosen programmes. This section will help you in making decisions about the feasibility of implementing the programmes, tailoring it to your organisation’s needs.
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Overview of data inputs
There are 3 types of data fields in the ROI Tool:
1. Default values*
These are data that are pre-populated in the ROI Tool, and that users can override with different values only in some cases
2. Calculated values
These values are a result of the calculations made by the ROI Tool and cannot be changed by the user, as those fields are results of formulas and calculations
3. Data entry required fields
The user needs to input their specific values into these fields
*For Default Values: These data are based on the results of the systematic literature review of research papers and international research, and therefore cannot be overridden by users of the Tool. The only default values that can be changed by the users are those related to the budget estimates to implement programmes, if users have different estimates of the cost-heads for programmes implementation.
Collect the information you need to check your programmes’ ROI: Download our handy Data Checklist
Our Case Studies
FAQs : Frequently Asked Questions
What is a ROI Tool?
Generally, a return on investment tool helps determine the value of your investment. In the current context, the investment modelled in this ROI Tool is about improving women workers’ health in your factory/company, by providing a range of different health interventions. This tool, developed by UNFPA, will help you compare and analyse the efficiency of different health interventions which can be rolled out in the factory.
How is the ROI Tool useful for Users?
This tool would be particularly useful to make a business case, a.k.a. nudge businesses and companies to invest in workers’ wellbeing as this improves their health and the business’s human resources, in turn boosting the factory/company’s productivity. You can choose between multiple interventions to run in your factory/company, so the ROI tool can help in the decision-making process by pointing out the savings and other positive outcomes to the business resulting from implementing such intervention.
What are the health interventions available in this tool?
A number of broad women's health interventions and training are modelled in this ROI tool. The full list of interventions available and their description can be found on the programmes page of this website.
How is the information stored and used by the ROI Tool Website?
Data inputted by users into this ROI Tool are securely stored on UNFPA’s secure servers. Only a limited number of people working in UNFPA have access to the data, and data will not be accessed or used for any other purpose aside those related to the functionality and quality assurance of the Tool itself.
What information should the factory/company feed into the tool to calculate the ROI?
This Tool requires users to input a number of information related to their factory/company, in order to estimate the potential effects of implementing the interventions in their workplace. The full list of data required to input into the tool are listed in the data manual.These include estimates on Productivity, Absenteeism and Staff Turnover. You can find more information on the data requirements in the ROI-T Guide section of this website.
How do we interpret the ROI?
The final result on ROI is interpreted as: “For every $1 invested [in implementing the interventions], there could be a potential return of $x”. The higher the ROI, the greater is the return from investing in an intervention or bundle of interventions.
Can we change the default values?
The default values you will find in the Tool are based on literature reviews of research papers who have carried out the same interventions. As such, only some default values can be overridden, if you feel that you have evidence to substantiate the changed values. This applies for example, to the cost estimates of the interventions provided in the Tool, which can be overridden according to your budget calculation for each cost head. And if you think there are additional cost heads, add those cost estimates under miscellaneous admin. cost cell.
Who do we include when the tool asks for ‘workers?’
With “workers” we intend all the employees of your factory/company for whom the intervention is carried out (i.e. treatment group). In this Tool, interventions are mostly intended to be provided to women workers who are employed in the factory/company. This is why the Tool asks you to enter the numbers of women aged 18-50 who work in your factory/company. We assume that all women who work in your factory/company will be able to receive the selected interventions.
What do you mean by ‘upper bound’ and ‘lower bound’ in the results?
The upper and lower bounds show the range of change possible in the outcomes (here the outcomes are absenteeism, turnover and productivity) upon implementing the intervention. This range is estimated from the literature review where several research papers were analysed and reviewed to determine the outcome of the same intervention.
Set up your workspace and start exploring programmes!
