How to draft an employee wellbeing strategy for your organisation
Enhancing employee wellbeing in the workplace is a crucial step towards looking after your people and improving organisational performance.
One way to ensure employee wellbeing is prioritised is through the development of an employee wellbeing strategy which can be continuously developed in order to cultivate a healthy workplace.
An employee wellbeing strategy will focus on the financial, physical and psychological wellbeing of your workforce. It should consider immediate support, as well as more long term positive and preventative approaches to help people to thrive at work.
Why develop an employee wellbeing strategy?
A well considered and implemented employee wellbeing strategy is proven to increase employee engagement leading to increased organisational performance.
Importantly, an employee wellbeing strategy will be unique to each organisation, its people and its needs. In this guide, we provide useful information on what organisations can focus on in their strategies. We look at how to improve employee engagement through your wellbeing strategy, and how to measure the efficacy of initiatives to seek continuous improvement.
What types of wellbeing should your strategy address?
An organisation’s employee wellbeing strategy should be holistic and address psychological, physical and financial wellbeing. Mental Health at Work suggests that the below areas of wellbeing should be considered when developing short and long-term employee wellbeing initiatives:
Psychological / Social
Positive emotions (mental health)
Engagement – the right work environment to be engaged
Relationships
Meaning – spiritual and purpose
Accomplishment
Physical
Sleep
Nutrition
Exercise
Financial
Budgeting/ planning
Redundancy support
Retirement planning
Debt management
Why are employee wellbeing strategies so important for organisations?
It makes sound business sense to promote and invest in the wellbeing agenda of your organisation, which will lead to increasingly resilient, engaged and productive employees. As a result, an employee wellbeing strategy will have a positive impact on organisational performance.
Unfortunately, wellbeing strategies are not always given the attention and investment they deserve in organisations due to a number of factors.
It could be that organisations do not understand the true value of promoting wellbeing in the workplace and the impact this could have on employees and performance. Or, you may not be aware of what initiatives are available. Another issue is that businesses may struggle to prove the worth of wellbeing strategies as they are notoriously difficult to measure and evaluate.
These obstacles can be overcome. We can position employee wellbeing as an intrinsic part of our overall business strategies and reap the rewards of a highly engaged workforce.
It is important to engage employees in developing the wellbeing strategy and identify the areas that most require investment and focus. Keep in mind that you will also need to consider how to retain your employees’ engagement as the strategy is rolled out in the medium and long term.
References:
https://www.fitzgeraldhr.co.uk/employee-wellbeing-strategy/