For greater productivity, performance and business results, research shows that prioritising employee wellbeing can have profound effects across the business. However, the last few years have shown a decline in employee wellbeing, with one in eight UK employees reporting low levels of wellbeing and just one-third of employees experiencing good emotional wellbeing.
Employee wellbeing can bring increased retention rates, greater performance, higher levels of productivity, reduced staff absence, and associated costs. Therefore, anything leaders can do to improve employee wellbeing will likely have wide-ranging business benefits, delivering a significant return on investment.
So, to foster employee wellbeing and realise these benefits, what can leaders do to improve employee wellbeing?
1. Complete regular employee medicals and health surveillance
For organisations to know how to help their employees, it’s helpful to understand your current level of employee health so that you can assess what practices to put in place and measure improvements too. Health surveillance shows employees that you take their physical and mental health seriously and prioritise employee welfare.
Health surveillance can detect health issues as quickly as possible, allowing organisations to provide necessary support and put in place strategies that improve employee health and wellbeing.
2. Open wellbeing communication
Fostering a culture of employee wellbeing begins by opening communication around wellbeing. This gives everyone a say on what wellbeing means to them and allows everyone to feel heard. In addition, creating open communication helps create a safe environment to raise concerns, offer feedback and make suggestions for improving the whole organisation’s wellbeing.
In some organisations, it may help to create a wellbeing network with wellbeing champions who help to increase wellbeing culture and communication across the business. These wellbeing champions can cover a whole host of wellbeing conversations, such as physical, financial, community and career wellbeing.
3. Offer wellbeing opportunities
Offering workplace wellbeing initiatives can help boost wellbeing and provides a greater understanding of wellbeing, which helps to raise organisation-wide awareness.
Wellbeing covers multiple aspects such as;
- Purpose, goals and motivation
- Social, community and support networks
- Finances and security
- Physical wellbeing
- Mental health
With this in mind, organisations can offer lots of initiatives to help boost all of these aspects, such as partnerships with gyms and health clubs, counselling opportunities, lunch and learn sessions, and wellness sessions. However, remembering that each individual will see wellbeing differently, it is important that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to wellbeing, but a tailored approach based on the individuals in your team.