Managing employee wellbeing can be a challenge. Every person values different things, or uses different methods to remain happy and healthy. Accommodating so many different needs is a challenge, but there are middle grounds that can be found to help as many people as possible. Once you know exactly what employee wellbeing is, you can find the right schemes and initiatives that can make a big difference.
What Is Employee Wellbeing?
Employee wellbeing covers a range of aspects, and they all work together to determine the overall well being of a person. These factors include:
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Physical
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Mental
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Emotional
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Economical
Employee wellbeing initiatives can focus on one or more of these factors, and you will often need multiple schemes to ensure all areas are being addressed. What areas offer the most, or will have the biggest, impact depends on how people currently feel about their emotional wellbeing. Before making any decision or plan on an employee wellbeing programme, it’s a good idea to understand how your staff feel and what they would like to see - or you might find the ideas you have go unused.
What Are The Benefits Of Employee Wellbeing?
The benefits of employee wellbeing are far reaching, but are most easily seen in the actions and attitudes of your employees.
By focusing on employee wellbeing, you can see improvements in a range of areas, like:
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A more positive attitude
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Reduced sickness
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Improved productivity
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Better communication
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More employee engagement
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Increased resilience
Changes to any of these factors will have a notable impact on an individual, as well as the wider team and business. Interactions will be more positive and energised, and the atmosphere in the workforce will be a lot better. When people enjoy going to work, and doing their job, they will feel better about their work-life balance.
What Employee Wellbeing Initiatives Can You Implement?
You can find out about what employee wellbeing initiatives your staff would find useful by listening to them. This can be in face-to-face discussions or through feedback forms and surveys.
With this information you can manage employee wellbeing options available to you, and implement the ones that will deliver value to your staff. This can be done at once or over a period of time, but the data you’ve gathered will help you prioritise different aspects of employee wellbeing to make the most effective decision. We’ve collected some ideas you can consider.
1) Recognition And Reward Schemes
Everyone wants to feel like what they do at work matters. Recognition and reward schemes help with that by providing a direct response to the work staff do. Recognition can be with a team, department, or company wide and shows that management knows what employees are doing to help the company succeed.
Reward schemes take this one step further. This can be meeting targets or goals, or can be a selective process on a recurring basis. What incentives you offer should be based around what people will find valuable or useful, whether that’s financial or not.
2) Meaningful Support Structures
A lot of jobs can be stressful, and if left unchecked this can hamper productivity. In the past, it was the responsibility of the individual to manage their stress and energy levels, as well as any personal problems. While this is still largely the case, ensuring there’s a good support system in place for staff can help with employee wellbeing.
These support structures can be in the form of specialised services offering counselling, mentoring, and emotional support, but just as important is having internal processes that are clearly defined and outlined. This can be for resolving conflicts and disputes, raising concerns, or just having someone to talk to.
3) Switch-Off Periods
The work-life balance is tricky to achieve, and during the Covid-19 pandemic, it became much harder as switching our laptops off at the end of the day still meant it was right there. Working so many extra hours can lead to higher levels of stress and burnout, so it needs to be managed.
One way to do this is with mandatory switch-off periods. The most common option is to force staff to take a lunch break. Ensuring no after-hours work is done without notice or approval can also help staff focus on their personal lives and feel more refreshed for the next day.
4) Socials And Events
Given the amount of time people spend at work, they will see their colleagues more often than friends or family in a lot of cases. While not everyone will get on perfectly, it is important to foster a professional working relationship and to make the time they spend together more enjoyable.
Socials and events can help with this. It can be a team lunch or Friday drinks at the end of the week, but experiences are becoming more common as a way to bond and learn more about each other in a fun and engaging way. This also lets you cater to different interests over time.
There’s no better way to get to know people than doing fun and different activities together. People will learn about themselves and others.
5) Healthy Eating Options
Tea and coffee might be seen as the staple of office and business supplies, but there’s a lot more that can be done. Convenience is often one of the biggest factors that decides what people eat, with the cost close behind.
Offering healthy snacks like fruit, vegetables, and nuts instead of the usual biscuits and cakes can make a big difference to everyone. They’ll have more energy for longer periods, and they’ll feel better about themselves, too.
Of course, some biscuits are perfectly acceptable, but the option to choose will let staff decide what they need and when.
You can go further and arrange socials around this, with cooking master classes that look at cheap, quick, and healthy meals that people can try.
6) Exercise Activities
A lot of jobs, especially office jobs, have employees sitting down for the majority of their day. This can make people stiff and tired, and those aches can make them less focused. One way to help with this is to arrange for exercise activities and sessions.
This might be mid-morning, mid-afternoon, or during lunch. They can be organised classes, or even just short walks in a nearby park or on a circuit. Adding options and intensity levels can make these activities more inclusive for everyone, and reduce the chance of people feeling nervous or embarrassed.
7) Training And Development
A big part of employee wellbeing is knowing that your career is going somewhere - and this is true no matter what job role or seniority someone has. This is why a training and development program is essential.
Identifying new skills and knowledge that can help someone do their job better will also make them feel more fulfilled and that they’re moving forward. Having a training budget, understanding what future goals are, and what can be done to achieve them, will all make staff feel valued and better about their place in the business.
How Can An Employee Wellbeing Programme Help Your Business?
A full employee wellbeing programme can do wonders for your business. By keeping staff engaged and happier, they’re more likely to remain with your business. This makes it easy to attract and keep the best talent. Not only does this lower hiring and training costs, but it helps your business reach its goals.
With employee wellbeing being such a broad topic, you can find many online courses to help improve the skills needed to deliver effective employee wellbeing initiatives. These are usually focused on certain topics, such as Strategy, Culture, and Engagement training, Mental Health Awareness, and Building Resilience At Work. To find out more about how we can help improve employee wellbeing at your business, get in touch with The Hub Events team today.