What is workplace wellbeing?
Workplace wellbeing has numerous definitions, the common themes across all definitions though is that workplace wellbeing refers to the physical, mental, financial and social wellbeing of staff and how that is influenced by factors including pay, relationships, working hours, the working environment and policies and procedures.
Why is workplace wellbeing so important?
According to Champion Health’s analysis of Google data the search terms, “introducing wellbeing at work”, and, “employee wellbeing platform”, saw increases of 900% and 800% respectively in 2020 compared to 2019. The main driver of this upsurge is without doubt the impact of the Covid 19 Pandemic which brought into sharp focus for us all the importance of looking after our wellbeing and many employers realised that there was now an expectation from staff to place a greater emphasis on wellbeing in the workplace too.
Employees spend a large part of their day at work and it is therefore incumbent on employers to take workplace wellbeing seriously in order to foster an environment in which people are happy and their wellbeing needs are met which then allows them to thrive. By creating this positive dynamic through a variety of interventions, both employees and the employer will benefit as staff are likely to have increased resilience, sickness absence and turnover will be lower and performance, engagement and productivity will be higher, it’s win-win.
How to deliver wellbeing in the workplace
Workplace wellbeing programmes should never be one size fits all, each business and its staff will have their own priorities which over time will change. It is paramount that employers engage their staff in the process, find out what wellbeing concerns they have, how they think these concerns can be addressed and then formulate a wellbeing offer that is tailored to provide targeted, relevant support. By doing so you will instantly get staff buy in and won’t fritter away valuable time and resources on something that staff won’t use and don’t benefit from. Workplace wellbeing programmes should also never stand alone and must be part of a cohesive plan that embeds employee wellbeing in an organisation’s culture, values and leadership. If this doesn’t happen then all employers are doing is creating something for the sake of it, it becomes a tick box exercise rather than something which is lived and breathed and which grows and evolves over time through regular feedback and review.
Do you have questions about Workplace Wellbeing?
Give us a call at CUBE HR on 01282 678321, we’ll be happy to advise you and we have policies and templates available to meet every HR need.
Why not check out our blog on a similar topic Wellbeing Guest Blog – Responsibility, Time & Consistency.
We also have a YouTube channel with loads of handy videos.
