9 Steps to Launch and Manage a Successful Employee Wellbeing Program
Similarly to any change that happens within organizations, implementing a successful employee wellbeing program needs a structure, planning and a proper employee communications strategy. In order to get the best out of your new initiative, employees have to be aligned, they have to understand its benefits and they need to have support from their superiors and leadership.
Let’s take a look into the crucial steps for implementing and maintaining your employee wellbeing program.
1. Get executives’ buy-in and support
Getting executive buy-in is the first step to getting started with your employee wellbeing strategy. Whenever there is change happening, it’s important to maintain executives’ buy-in and support over time. More than ever before, leaders need to act as role models to the entire company.
2. Send a company-wide wellbeing survey
Many organizations that want to implement an employee wellbeing program simply don’t know where to start. Start with your employees!
In order to build the best program, you first need to understand your employees’ fears, needs, wants, problems and concerns. Only then you can really make sure that your program will be efficient, and that it will deliver the expected results.
3. Create a wellbeing program based on your employees’ feedback
Use employee feedback captured in your surveys to better plan for your wellbeing program. Based on the insights collected, you can make a better decision on what your program should contain.
4. Define the goals
As you will see later in this article, there are numerous benefits of investing in employee wellbeing. Based on the challenges your organization is facing, some of your goals may be:
To increase staff satisfaction
To increase staff morale
To improve staff retention
To increase productivity
5. Launch your wellbeing program and make the company-wide announcement
The effectiveness of your new program will greatly depend on your ability to spread the word across your entire organization and reach every employee with the news. As mentioned earlier, organizations need to ensure the right flow of information by consolidating different communication channels into a central communications platform.
6. Promote your wellbeing program and communicate its benefits to build internal awareness
If employee wellness programs are built to achieve desired outcomes, effective internal communication to drive employee participation is a must. Employees need to understand the benefits of wellbeing for both them personally as well as the organization as a whole. Only then you can align your workplace to work towards the same wellbeing goals that you have previously identified.
7. Get your managers on board
Managers are the ones that usually have the strongest connections with their teams and, therefore, serve as an important source of information about company’s news and updates.
7. Get your managers on board
Managers are the ones that usually have the strongest connections with their teams and, therefore, serve as an important source of information about company’s news and updates.
8. Continuously encourage employees to participate and solicit their ideas
Employers should continuously encourage their employees to participate in the wellbeing programs and make suggestions for improvements. This approach helps employees better understand their role in creating a culture of wellbeing.
9. Measure the impact
Even though employee wellbeing is not easy to measure directly, there are ways to measure your employees’ engagement with it. If you are using a modern employee communications software solution, reporting should provide insights into readership at employee or campaign level, providing assurance that everyone was reached.
References:
https://blog.smarp.com/employee-wellbeing-definition-importance-best-practice