Understanding the Wellbeing Needs of your Organisation
Employee health and wellbeing are of paramount importance, both from the point of view of your people and your organisation. Almost 27 million working days were lost to work-related ill health in 2017/18 and that’s before you factor in the impact that the pandemic has had on employee health and wellbeing over the last 12 months. According to feedback gathered by Harvard Business Review in a survey of more than 1,500 respondents, across various sectors, roles, and seniority levels, in the autumn of 2020, 85% of respondents said their wellbeing had declined in 2020, with only 21% rating their wellbeing as ‘good’...
Wellbeing, or wellness, in itself refers to how someone feels about their life in relation to all the things it is made up of – their home life, their health (mental and physical), their job, their hobbies, their relationships. Do these things make them happy?
When you assess workplace wellbeing in a traditional sense, it was at one point limited to physical health, sickness and safety while at work. But with a big increase in the number of reported mental health issues – in 2019/20 stress, depression or anxiety accounted for 51% of all work-related ill health cases and 55% of all working days were lost due to work-related ill health – it’s now well recognised that, in many cases, the main risks to people’s health at work are psychological. As such, the definition of employee wellbeing has evolved to incorporate everything that has an impact on an employee's ability to perform at their best.
Why is workplace wellbeing more important than ever before?
The COVID-19 pandemic has put concerns about health and wellbeing at the top of the priority list for the majority of employees. In January, we revealed how health and exercise topped the list of most important Blend elements for our users for the second year running. In fact, it saw a 14% increase between January 2020 to January 2021.
This is hardly surprising when you consider that exercise has been one of the only things people have been able to get out and enjoy over the last twelve months. Staying inside the same four walls 24/7 has been a struggle for many, especially when you consider that the home (which should be a place of relaxation) has now, in a lot of cases, been transformed into a schoolroom and an office too.
How can you improve wellbeing in your workplace?
Taking all of the above into consideration, here are our suggestions for how you can promote and improve employee wellbeing and start to think about ‘health and happiness’ initiatives, even while your team is working from home:
Actively promote flexible working
This is especially important at the moment when parents are trying to juggle family responsibilities, and even homeschool reluctant children, alongside work demands. Implementing flexible working will reduce stress and anxiety among your employees and let them know you understand that, right now, times are tough.
Train managers within your organisation on the importance of employee wellbeing
Managers who are trained and coached to have the right sorts of conversations will ensure that measures to improve workforce wellbeing will trickle right down to the bottom of your organisation. You want to know you can count on them to assign fair workloads, provide clear objectives, and deliver feedback.
Don’t overload your employees, set goals and track results in the right way
Further to #3, don’t give your workers too much to do. Yes, output and KPIs are still important, but the order of this time is work smart. WFH has left a lot of workers feeling like they must always be ready to respond more quickly from their computers, which is adding extra stress to their already stressful lives. Make sure expectations are set and that you are tracking progress and the management of set tasks and responsibilities, effectively.
Set up regular one-to-ones. Get these scheduled in on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. And if these are already in place, have you checked in to see whether they are frequent enough to deal with the challenges that may be impacting on their wellbeing? By setting up (and sticking to) regular one-toones, you can keep a close eye on what’s changed, how they feel, how productivity has increased (or decreased) and what needs to happen next. For your employees, the very nature of feeling like they are moving forwards is a morale boost.
Reference:
https://www.openblend.com/knowledge-base/employee-wellbeing