What is Employee Wellbeing and why should organisations worry about it?

In today's dynamic work environment, employee wellbeing has become a key focus for many organisations striving to attract, retain, and motivate top talent. But what exactly is employee wellbeing, and why should it be part of any Reward and benefits agenda within a business?

Employee wellbeing encompasses a holistic approach to an individual's health and happiness, combining physical, emotional, financial, social, community, and family aspects. This comprehensive view of wellbeing goes beyond traditional, and possibly even outdated, ideas of workplace wellbeing, recognising that employees' overall quality of life and happiness, both in and out of work, significantly impacts their engagement and performance and ultimately business performance.

Why Employee Wellbeing Matters

• Total Reward Package: Many employees, but particularly those from younger generations, view wellbeing as an integral component of their total Reward package. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a significant shift in what employees expect from their employers, with a strong emphasis on wellbeing programmes. By offering robust wellbeing initiatives, organisations can differentiate themselves in a competitive job market, attracting top talent who value all-inclusive wellbeing support.
• Retention and Support: Wellbeing initiatives are crucial for employee retention. They demonstrate an organisation's commitment to its people's long-term health and satisfaction, promoting loyalty and happiness. When employees feel supported in various aspects of their lives, they are more likely to stay with the organisation and contribute their best efforts.
• Maximising Employee Potential: Employees are an organisation's most valuable resource. When their wellbeing is prioritised, employees will typically be more productive, engaged, and innovative. Addressing all areas of wellbeing enables employees to perform well daily, and ultimately supports the organisation's overall success.
• Business results: Ultimately happy, healthy engaged employees perform better at work, hence this leads to better business outcomes including higher productivity and profit or fewer accidents and errors.

Components of Wellbeing

Employee wellbeing encompasses several key areas:

• Physical: Promoting healthy lifestyles through diet and nutrition programs, exercise initiatives, and providing access to gyms can improve physical health. Seminars or workshops that address habits like smoking, alcohol consumption, proper sleep, and hydration are also a great way to support employees to improve their physical and overall wellbeing.
• Emotional: Mental health support, stress management programs, and emotional support networks are critical for maintaining employees' emotional stability. Having access to a supporting EAP service, or Mental Health First Aiders within an organisation can offer support to those who may be struggling.
• Financial: Offering financial education, planning services, and communicating great benefits like pensions and debt management support can alleviate financial stress, a major contributor to overall wellbeing.
• Social: Creating opportunities for social interaction, such as events and networking opportunities, as well as offering remote working options, can strengthen social wellbeing.
• Family: Providing benefits such as maternity and paternity leave, shared parental leave, flexible working arrangements, and childcare support addresses the needs of employees with families. Additionally, some wellbeing providers also offer elderly support, which can help take the strain off employees who may have elderly relatives to care for.
• Community: Encouraging volunteering and charitable giving not only benefits society but also enhances employees' sense of purpose and connection.

Challenges and Solutions

One of the primary challenges in implementing wellbeing programmes is that wellbeing means different things to different people. Therefore, creating a programme that covers all bases can be daunting but valuable. As an example, health cash plans, which allow employees to claim back costs for various health-related expenses but equally have access to a varying amount of wellbeing support can be an effective solution and enable them to make personal choices to support their wellbeing.

Ultimately, ensuring that any wellbeing programme is well communicated out to employees is also key. If employees are not aware of what is on offer to them, they can feel disengaged and not utilise what they have available to them. Of course this is also a waste of valuable resources.

Innovative Wellbeing Initiatives

Organisations are increasingly offering creative and flexible wellbeing options recognising that wellbeing has individual interpretation.

For example, here at Reward Heads one of our employee values is 'personalised', so to ensure we give our employees a personalised choice about what wellbeing means to them, we provide an annual wellbeing allowance that employees can use for activities that enhance their wellbeing. This includes things such as gym memberships, workout classes, gardening, or social activities like dining out with friends. Alternatively, we offer “wellbeing time”: a dedicated 30-minute paid break each week for employees to engage in activities that promote their wellbeing. Whether it's a walk, reading, taking a nap, or cuddling a pet, it's 30 minutes of uninterrupted time for them to enjoy and come back to work feeling refreshed. Importantly, it is their choice to take the time or the allowance and how that is used.

Reward Heads also operate fully remotely, which we know is proven to boost employee wellbeing, as invaluable time is not wasted sitting on a train, or feeling fed up in traffic before you've even arrived at the office.

Cost-Effective Wellbeing Engagement

Engaging employees in wellbeing activities doesn't always require significant expenditure. For instance, for a bit of fun Reward Heads currently run step challenges which has proven to be a cost-effective way to boost physical and social wellbeing within our team. Such initiatives encourage employees to be active and foster a sense of community and motivation within the workplace (whilst generating some healthy competition!).

Overall, prioritising employee wellbeing is not just a compassionate and caring initiative but also provides some strategic benefit to organisations. Data shows that engaged employees are more productive, more likely to stay, make fewer errors, and have fewer accidents. By addressing the diverse needs of your workforce through comprehensive and flexible wellbeing programmes, organisations can build a motivated, loyal, and high-performing team, ultimately driving long-term success.

The Reward Heads team would love to support you and your team in developing your wellbeing strategy and key initiatives within that. Please reach out to Victoria Milford, our CEO, at rewardsolutions@rewardheads.co.uk.

We also offer Reward coaching modules, which are designed to help expand Reward knowledge within your organisation, and have some modules specially dedicated to Total Reward and Wellbeing here - Coaching.

Emma Chamberlain - Senior Consultant