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How to Improve Employee Wellbeing

May 30, 2023

How to Improve Employee Wellbeing

Happy employees are more productive [1], more inclined to collaborate to deliver results and more likely to share successes. This makes for an enjoyable culture wherein staff actively want to come to work and thrive on delivering the results that your business is seeking.

 

Research has demonstrated on many occasions that businesses across all industry sectors would be wise to bear this in mind and to continually seek out ways in which they can improve employee wellbeing in the workplace.

 

How to improve employee wellbeing

 

Employee wellbeing is the term that is given to the emotional, physical and mental health of staff in a workplace. It encompasses all of the elements that create their attachment to their job, and their engagement with peers and colleagues. In order to establish employee wellbeing initiatives that will deliver the results that your business is seeking, you must first determine what issues already exist.

 

To be successful, your employee wellbeing initiatives must be targeted so that they appeal to the demographic of your workforce. They need to be implemented with minimal additional training requirements, and satisfy the needs of your employees rather than add to their already busy lives.

 

For example, where team members may be burned out as a result of a high number of open vacancies, increasing recruitment activity and backfilling those vacancies with competent new starters will have a far more positive impact on employee engagement and wellbeing than may be achieved through other means.

 

Establishing the most appropriate employee wellbeing initiatives

 

Once your leadership team has established where any current employee wellness initiatives are failing to deliver the expected results, you can begin to identify the most appropriate solutions to address any shortcomings. As we mentioned above, by no means every cause of employee dissatisfaction will be resolved by even the best wellbeing programme. Some factors may require a fundamental change in approach, so it is important not to treat wellbeing initiatives as a panacea.

 

Successful employee wellness initiatives have several things in common. They help staff to feel valued and respected, they promote the work that staff perform as meaningful, and they open the door for open and honest conversations between staff and the leadership team [2].

 

Lead by example

 

When leaders within an organisation speak out about mental, physical and emotional health, and practise what they preach, staff will feel more inclined to engage. For example, when a manager makes a point of taking their lunch break away from their desk, staff recognise that it is acceptable for them to do the same. Simple measures such as this can have a significant impact on their wellbeing.

 

Ask staff for their opinions

 

Instead of implementing an employee wellness program merely because it feels appropriate for the business or has a reputation for success, try asking your staff what would help them. By engaging with them, they will feel that their opinions are valued and this step alone can be hugely motivating for any workforce. It also minimises the likelihood of a business implementing an unnecessary or unwanted program.

 

Informal training and development

 

Formal training can add pressure to an already stressed individual who knows they will still need to do their day job and meet their existing deadlines, even though they have been asked to take time away from the office to attend training.

 

Informal, on-the-job training can take the form of shadowing or mentoring, allowing staff to ask questions of subject matter experts and learn in shorter blocks of time and in a more relaxed environment.

 

Regular reviews

 

Just as regular performance reviews can help an employee to maintain their career trajectory, routine reviews of the chosen employee wellness initiative can help your organisation to determine its effectiveness.

 

This can take the form of staff satisfaction surveys or simply a periodic review of performance metrics such as time lost through sickness or projects delivered in accordance with their KPIs. Improvements should be seen over time, and where this is not the case, or if a decline in performance is noted, it is imperative that you investigate the root cause of this failure urgently in order to address it before it becomes a systemic failure with long lasting implications for employee satisfaction and corporate performance.

 

Terryberry support

 

Whether you are at the start of your employee wellbeing journey, or have uncovered performance issues which may be related to subdued levels of employee engagement, Terryberry has the experience, tools and expertise necessary to help your business to overcome these issues and improve employee wellbeing.

 

To find out more about how our services can improve the performance of your business and your team, please contact us today for a demo.

 

Resources:

 

[1] https://warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/pressreleases/new_study_shows/

[2] https://www.mind.org.uk/media-a/4662/resource3_howtopromotewellbeingfinal.pdf

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