Why employee wellbeing is the future of work culture

Employee wellbeing isn’t just a benefit of a good job, it’s fast becoming a core element of modern work culture. With hybrid working gaining popularity, workplaces have invested more in wellness initiatives to increase their resilience moving forward.

Even with this recent surge in interest, our research shows only 15 percent of employees describe the health-related benefits offered by their employer as ‘excellent.’

Wellbeing is important to employees, and they value workplaces that look after them. To make sure you’re catering to the needs and expectations of your staff, you’ll need to create a culture of wellbeing.

How you can make employee wellbeing part of your work culture

People are the heart of any company, so when they're thriving, you flourish too. With that said, 66 percent of employees want more wellbeing support from their employer. This is in response to the changes and disruptions affecting the workplace in the last few years.

Here’s how you can make wellbeing a core part of your workplace culture:

Focus on holistic wellbeing

Wellbeing isn’t a tick box on your work culture criteria. It should encompass everything that affects your employees and support them accordingly. To do this, your approach to wellbeing must be holistic.

Holistic wellbeing involves nurturing your mind, body, spirit and social needs. And they’re all interconnected with one another. Here’s what that means in the workplace:

• Physical wellbeing. Physical wellbeing deals with aspects of work, such as health and safety, preventing desk related injuries and minimising the risk of disease. You can achieve this with regular workplace risk assessments. You can also provide your employees with resources to help them understand things like maintaining good posture and why they should take frequent breaks.
• Mental wellbeing. Our mental wellbeing refers to how we think and respond to stress. It also encompasses conditions like anxiety and depression. One in six workers is dealing with a mental health issue at any given time. Poor mental health negatively impacts your employees’ ability to look after themselves and work effectively. Employers can support their employees by creating a comfortable, stress-free working environment. They can also provide access to mental health support, such as counselling.
• Social wellbeing. Socialisation helps employees feel a part of a larger community and gives them a sense of place. You can help your employees cultivate their social wellbeing by organising time for socialisation and encouraging positive interactions. For example, this might include happy half hours, spaces to talk over coffee, or work events.
• Spiritual wellbeing. You might think spirituality doesn't have anything to do with work, but it does affect your employees' outlook. It’s about an individual’s relationship with the wider world and their approach to change. In a workplace, this can involve their development and career goals.

All types of wellbeing impact each other. There’s a link between mind and body. Impacts on one affect the other.

With that said, our research shows only 58 percent of surveyed employees say their employers recognise the link between good physical and mental health. This means their wellbeing initiatives aren’t achieving as much as they could be.

Don’t fall into that same hole. Taking a holistic approach means you’re covering all your bases. A holistic wellbeing app like Symbio is a great way to provide your employees with trusted resources to help them with their problems.

Boost your employee retention

In the era of The Great Resignation, you need an employee retention strategy. Your approach to wellbeing directly affects your organisation’s turnover rate.

Here are some wellbeing initiatives that can improve your retention:

• Create a supportive work environment. Providing your employees with a comfortable and encouraging working environment helps them perform at their best. Practising clear communication and offering the right training can help with this.
• Recognise and validate employees’ work. Praise for good work boosts happiness, which improves productivity. Celebrate good work and praise employees for meeting their goals. Also, give your employees autonomy over their work. This helps them feel empowered and not micromanaged.
• Offer wellbeing benefits. Job benefits not only attract new hires, but also retain your top talent. Mental health support, access to healthcare and additional paid time off are among the top priorities for job seekers when finding a new job. You could also offer gym memberships or access to digital wellbeing apps like Symbio.
• Encourage healthy working practices. Be mindful of bad working practices such as presenteeism. Encourage a good work-life balance and help your staff leave their work at the door when five o’clock rolls around.

Imagine you’re outside your organisation looking in. Do you see happy employees working their hours without stress, or do problems immediately come to mind?

How you treat your employees and how they feel about their work certainly impacts retention. And don’t just limit it to your employees. Consider your investors, your consumers and potential new hires. They’re all people associated with your company that need wellbeing support, so don’t limit your focus to only one group.

Wellbeing keeps your work culture alive

Seventy percent of HR respondents agree that employee wellbeing is on their senior leaders’ agendas. The importance of wellbeing cannot be denied. The continued investment into wellbeing proves that happy and healthy employees are critical to your work culture.

To create a sustainable culture, embed wellbeing into all aspects of your workplace. By investing more resources, taking a holistic approach and considering everyone involved, you’ll foster a more resilient workplace.

For more information on how you can create a workplace where wellbeing shines, head over to our resources page. Or, speak to us today to discover more about how our service can help your workforce.