In the world, 58% of the population spends a third of their entire life working. This means that your team dedicates a huge amount of time to aid your company in fulfilling its goals.
Knowing that, supporting their wellbeing should be one of your priorities. And here’s how to promote the emotional, physical, social, and financial health of the people who work in a company.
What Is Employee Wellbeing and Why Is It Important?
Wellbeing refers to everything from physical, psychological, and emotional health, to the person’s social relationships and financial stability. Working to improve employee wellbeing is not just to show gratitude for your team’s time and effort. By using a variety of strategies to make employees happy, you can boost their productivity and mental health, as well as make them more motivated to work toward your company’s goals.
According to a report by Gallup, 76% of employees are experiencing burnout and stress symptoms because of poor work conditions. If your team falls into this group, they are hardly likely to work hard in their job positions and can make tons of errors that will cost you time and money.
Not only that, but unhappy employees are very likely to leave your company, so you’d basically be losing quality staff and spend more on recruiting new members.
While it may seem costly and unnecessary to opt for wellbeing initiatives, this can significantly boost the health and motivation of your staff. Good health and wellbeing programs in the workplace have shown a 230% return on investment (ROI).
Ways to Improve Employee Wellbeing in the Workplace
How can you improve employee wellbeing in your company to get the high ROI and perks this offers? To assist you with this, we created a list of the 7 most effective ways to do it.
1. Have a great employee benefits program
With a good employee benefits program, you can reduce turnover and maximize the productivity of your team. Even so, creating a good program is not a simple task. It’s vital to the progress of your brand, but it must capture everything from the salaries to health benefits to your rewards system.
In a company, the administration has to work to implement an employee benefits program that fits their team members i.e. meets their needs and expectations. Thankfully, there are tools that can help create the said program as well as provide better employee benefits management. Perkbox can create a competitive benefits program that will bring an impressive ROI and help you boost the retention percentage.
Employee benefits include all the perks you give to your team. Providing a comprehensive and rewarding benefits program is crucial for attracting top talent these days. In addition to it, this helps you keep the great workers in your company, and motivates them to work better.
There are many different types of employee benefits, some of which are listed here:
2. Arrange get-togethers for a healthier work culture
Healthy and professional relationships among colleagues in your company are very important for their wellbeing. Imagine being stuck in an office for hours without the opportunity to talk to someone or share some information. People who have others to talk to and get help from at work are more engaged and motivated to work.
Having friends or colleagues with which they can converse freely can help your team with their job performance. This is even more important if you need them to work as a team – which is the case for most companies.
Nowadays, many of the employees in a company work remotely, especially during the pandemic. Them not being in-office does not mean that you shouldn’t include them in the work gatherings. There are plenty of ways to promote remote team building and include even the workers who aren’t physically present in your offices.
3. Introduce wellness and fitness programs
Nothing says wellbeing and health louder than physical activity. Many of the people in your office need to find a life-work balance, which is hard to do with a busy schedule. This is why more and more companies are introducing on-site wellness and fitness programs – to motivate and enable their employees to exercise and improve their overall health.
There are tons of options to incorporate this into your program. Options range from guided classes for yoga to sit-stand desks to seminars for better stress management. The list goes on and on and includes all kinds of things that can make your team feel and perform better.
If incorporating such a program in the workplace is not doable for some reason, you can always give your team access to outside activities, such as a monthly gym membership or vouchers for yoga classes.
Microsoft’s wellness program is an epic example of this. The company offers education for cessation of smoking, fitness training, weight management, and even their “know your numbers” screening effects for employees and their spouses. These screenings are for diabetes, heart diseases, blood pressure, and cholesterol. In addition to that, the Microsoft campus has pharmacists, onsite clinics, and other healthcare services.
In addition to the on-site fitness opportunities, the company funds its employees’ gym memberships or helps them obtain fitness-related equipment.
4. Create incentives and reward programs
Incentives and rewards can make your team feel better and give them more motivation to work. This is a great way to keep your team productive and reduce their stress levels. If your team knows what they work for, and are aware that their hard work will bring them something good, they’ll be more involved in their work.
The same applies to rewards. If you only speak to your team to tell them about the mistakes they’ve made or what they could improve, and fail to praise their great work, they will be stressed and lose motivation. With a good reward system, one that shows them you value their efforts, you’ll create a better work culture and make people happier.
This doesn’t have to be something grand, either. Based on your company’s budget and the achievements of your team, you should come up with an acceptable rewards program. Big achievements should result in a bigger reward, while the small ones can be praised with a simple ‘top worker program’, a day off, voucher or free membership, etc.
5. Provide opportunities for professional and career advancement
Most people don’t want to stagger in the same position all their lives. They want to develop professionally and achieve advancements in their career. This is good for your business since it means that they’ll strive to work harder to achieve their goals.
However, it is also your obligation to prioritize said development and offer them opportunities to learn more.
One research by Udemy shows that 42% of the young workers search for development and learning opportunities in the job positions they are considering. They place the importance of this right beside the salary, making it an essential thing to add to your recruitment plan.
How can you promote this?
You can provide opportunities for soft-skill training, cross-departmental training, mentoring, and a good learning management system. Basically, give your team a chance to learn when they want to.
6. Offer corporate volunteering opportunities
Also known as employee volunteering, this is a great way to engage the team, as well as contribute to your community. On one hand, it helps your team build their skills and feel better about themselves. On the other hand, corporate volunteering helps your company stand out in the crowd.
This makes it one of the best things for your company today. You can learn more here in AlayaGood’s guide on corporate volunteering, as well as find a variety of corporate volunteering solutions for your team.
According to their guide, there are five main benefits of this:
- Improves the wellbeing of your employees
- Helps you look better in the eyes of prospective employees, i.e. attracts the top talent
- Boosts the morale of your team
- Help you build a stronger brand
- Contributes to your team’s development
7. Communicate with your team
The best way to learn what will increase your employees’ wellbeing is to ask them directly. Healthy communication in the workplace is the key to productive work. Instead of hoping that your strategies will be good for your unmotivated staff, communicate with them to find out what you can do.
Ask your team questions like:
- Are you happy with your career right now?
- Is the workload we give you manageable?
- Do you feel comfortable in our company?
- What can we do to make your working here with us better?
To avoid false answers because employees are intimidated or too wary, you could make such surveys anonymous.
Wrapping Up
Many things can lead to your company’s success, but the most important thing is the people working in it. Happy employees equal a hard-working and productive team. To achieve this, you should continuously work on increasing your team’s wellbeing. These are great ways to get started.
