Employee well-being is one of the most important parts of creating a healthy and productive work environment for any business. The well-being of employees should be a priority for any company or organization because having happier employees can improve your company’s culture and productivity. In this article, we will look at what employee well-being is and why it is important.
What is Employee Well-Being?
Employee well-being is the physical, mental, emotional, and economic health of your employees. Their well-being can be influenced by their relationships with coworkers and bosses, the tools and resources they can access, and the decisions they make while working. Their hours, workplace safety, and pay can have a big impact on the well-being of your employees. There are a lot of external factors that can be part of your employee’s well-being as well, like their home life, family, and health. While an employer cannot control those external factors, they can take responsibility for the well-being of their employees when they are on the clock.
Why is Employee Well-being Important?
Employers have a duty to give their employees the support and care that they need for their overall well-being. However, the majority of organizations do not have a strategy to address employee well-being and help their employees feel more supported and valued at work. This can also improve employee engagement, which will improve your productivity and overall work environment. Employees who feel valued will care more about their work and put in better effort while on the clock.
The point of a well-being program is to prevent lost time due to your employees missing work from getting sick or because of their mental health. It is also intended to avoid overstressing them to the point that their work suffers. These issues will cost a company a lot more money than investing in the morale of its employees.
Why Implement an Employee Well-Being Program?
One of the biggest advantages of implementing a new employee well-being program is that people tend to perform better when they feel well. Their productivity gets better, and they are able to develop better habits, like getting more sleep at night, eating healthier, and having a better work/life balance. Caring about employee wellness will lead to higher morale because their needs are being met and they feel more valued by their employer.
Many prospective employees now look for a healthier work environment when job hunting and will choose a job that offers a healthier experience than one that pays higher. Some of the benefits you can offer that will help entice top talent include offering paid sick days and mental health days. This is especially important to keep in mind as we enter year three of the COVID-19 pandemic because many jobs dealing with the public have had to deal with unpleasant and extreme demands and emotions from customers because of the stress of the pandemic. Investing in your employees’ well-being can help keep them happy even in situations where they have to deal with unpleasant customers because they will feel more supported by their employer and superiors.
It will cost employers more money to continuously hire and train new people because existing employees are quitting because their well-being is not being supported than it will to implement a new strategy that invests in their well-being. Plus, becoming known as a bad place to work will eventually become well-known enough that you might start seeing fewer applicants. This is already something we are seeing in a lot of customer-facing industries now, like fast food and grocery chains.
Creating an Employee Well-being Program
Every company culture is different, so there is no cookie-cutter design for implementing an employee well-being strategy. It needs to be based on the unique needs of your business, but there are some things to aim for when working on your well-being program.
The first thing to keep in mind when putting together your well-being program is to invest in your employee’s mental health. This includes offering mental health days and communicating with your employees better. You can also offer mental health breaks, so they can take a few minutes to sit down and collect themselves when work gets to be too stressful. One way to do that is to invest in an app like Rootd to help your employees work on their mental health and get through panic attacks.
Offering sick days and a good health benefits package is also important to include in your well-being plan.
Since this is all about your employees, ask them what they need to feel more supported. Send out questionnaires to your employees or hold meetings to ask them what they want to see done differently. Keep this communication open as you implement your well-being program. Ask your employees at regular intervals if they are happy with the changes they are seeing and if they have any constructive criticism about the program. You can even keep this up over the years, so your program can evolve as your business and employees do.
Final Thoughts
Investing in employee well-being is important because you are showing your employees that you care about them. One way to do this is to sign up for a company package from Rootd to give your employees access to the app and help them improve their mental health. Learn more and sign up today!