Keeping Employee Wellbeing at the Top of the Agenda
Increased resilience, staff retention, a boost in productivity, performance and reduced sickness absence. These are all the results of investing in employee wellbeing. If it’s not at the top of your agenda then it certainly should be.
Whether you’re an SME, large enterprise or blue chip employer, fostering employee wellbeing is a must and benefits both the employee and employer. To reach its full impact, your organisation and the employee, health and wellbeing priorities must be embedded throughout the business culture, leadership and people management.
So, what are the measures that you can implement to keep employee wellbeing at the top of the agenda?
Holistic Wellbeing
Holistic wellbeing is a trending topic in the world of HR. Everyone works in different ways. Some are more motivated and feel energised when in the office bouncing off one another, whereas others feel in the zone when they can get their heads down working from home and some like a balance of the two. Organisations need to treat employees as an individual. A one size fits all approach to employee wellbeing simply won’t cut it.
There are six critical foundations to a holistic wellbeing approach: Emotional, Physical, Social, Financial, Career and Community wellbeing.
Emotional Wellbeing
From presenteeism to mental health issues, looking after your employees' mental health is a must. Fatigue, lack of concentration and mistakes can all be a result of poor emotional wellbeing manifesting as being unproductive in the workplace. This can eventually turn into chronic work stress, anxiety and depression.
What can employers do to support emotional wellbeing?
Talk about mental health: Give your employees a safe space where they can talk if they need to. Ensure managers and supervisors are trained to deal with sensitive issues so they can spot the signs of someone in the team struggling in the workplace. Having a counselling programme within the workplace is also beneficial to support your employees to access professional help.
Understand your team's workloads: By understanding your team’s workloads, you can efficiently delegate tasks and reduce workloads to ensure employees don’t feel overworked and at risk of burnout.
Encourage annual leave and regular breaks: Encourage your employees to take annual leave so they can switch off and do things that will leave them feeling refreshed and engaged when they return. Make sure they also rewind each evening and on weekends so they can feel rested.
Physical Wellbeing
Physical wellbeing is closely linked to mental health, social and emotional wellbeing. With remote working, it’s increasingly important to ensure employees are looking after their physical health.
What can employers do to support physical wellbeing?
Introduce movement breaks: Encourage employees to get up an move, whether that be introducing two 15 minute breaks, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, so your staff return feeling revived and ready to tackle their workload head on.
Financial Wellbeing
With the cost of living increasing, employees can feel overwhelmed. Lack of financial security can cause mental health issues and even impact physical wellbeing. This in turn can cause immediate business risks like presenteeism, lower productivity and absenteeism.
What can employers do to support financial wellbeing?
Employee benefits: Make sure your employees are aware of their benefits and how they can get the most out of them. Offering benefits can boost morale, energy, and productivity in the workplace.
Financial advice and support: By educating employees about financial wellbeing and signposting to advice and guidance you can make a significant difference. Resources like the Government's Money and Pensions Service enables people to get free confidential money and debt advice. Try to normalise money worries too and create a safe place where employees can talk about this.
Social wellbeing
As a result of more people working from home, a lack of social connection between colleagues can form. This can lead to employees feeling isolated and disengaged with an absence of team morale.
What can employers do to support social wellbeing?
Offer social events: Social events can be a great opportunity for team members to bond. Whether it be bowling, an escape room, water sports activities, climbing up a mountain or something else the team can really work together to do. These types of social events can really bring the team together by building relationships and a sense of community.
Have regular catch ups: Make sure to check in with your team on a regular basis, whether it be over chat, a WhatsApp group, email, web call or face to face meeting. This can all help to understand your team's needs and build trust.
Community wellbeing
When an employee's work positively makes an impact, they feel in a better head space to tackle work head-on.
Your staff should feel engaged and empowered to work towards your company’s mission. Having clear company goals gives your employees direction so they can all work towards a common goal, boosting staff morale and productivity levels.
Career wellbeing
Career wellbeing is vital today. Happiness has been proven to increase productivity. Employees are looking for progression opportunities, to feel valued and flexibility from the traditional outdated 9-5 norm.
So what can employers do to support career wellbeing?
Give employees opportunities to progress: Assist your staff in developing the abilities that will better enable them to achieve their professional aspirations and personal goals. Once they have decided where to focus their attention and energy, assist them in acquiring the abilities and motivation necessary to propel their development.
Have regular appraisals: The purpose of appraisal systems is to increase organisational effectiveness by ensuring that employees work to the best of their abilities, reach the full extent of their potential, and receive rewards. Improved organisational performance is a result of appraisals being carried out.
Empower employees to take ownership of their holistic wellbeing
