How to Promote Employee Wellbeing

There is a growing awareness in the business world that taking care of the wellbeing of employees is a vital component of any organization’s success.

By adopting practices and policies that promote employee wellbeing, businesses can enjoy a range of benefits, in productivity, commercial profitability and staff morale.

What do we mean by wellbeing?

The word ‘wellbeing’ covers a variety of different components regarding the way that people feel about not just their work but their overall lives, including their relationships. While businesses cannot have much influence on what happens to an individual outside the workplace, they are in a position to affect wellbeing inside the workplace.

Wellbeing at work is composed of a number of different elements. It includes such issues as job satisfaction, training confidence, opportunity for skills development, control over job roles and opportunities to use initiative and make a difference within an organization.

How can wellbeing be improved?

Any employer has the ability and the potential to affect, for good or bad, the wellbeing of their employees. How this is done will vary from business to business, but there are some important areas that any employer looking to improve employee wellbeing would be wise to focus on.

Autonomy

Giving employees a degree of autonomy over how they go about their job is one way to boost wellbeing. Of course, this does not mean that they can overlook the correct way to carry out their job, but where it is possible to give employees a say in how decisions are made or a degree of discretion in fulfilling their role, this can often have positive wellbeing effects.

Communication

Good communication is vital to any successful business, and in the area of employee wellbeing it is particularly important. If employees feel that they are being listened to and that they have a chance to communicate with their employer, they will feel more engaged and involved in the business, which will help to boost their morale.

Variety of work

No-one wants to go through the same actions every day. Indeed, the desire to have a more varied working life is one of the main reasons that some people set up their own businesses. By recognizing that giving people a variety of tasks to undertake, through imaginative job design, they will find themselves regularly challenged in different aspects, helping to ensure that they don’t become jaded in their work, and developing a set of skills.

Benefits

If you want your employees to be productive, it is important to recognize that health plays a role in this. There are a number of ways in which an employer can improve the health and wellbeing of employees, from workplace exercise classes to offering regular health tests. Hormone testing, for example, is an often-overlooked assessment that can be key to improving the health, wellbeing and productivity of employees. Employers can give their employees access to online hormone tests and other types of medical check-ups as part of a wellbeing benefits package.

There are even employee wellness initiatives that come at no cost to the business such as a dog friendly workplace which has been proven to provide a number of health benefits.

Clear goals and support

If you are clear about what you expect of employees and you back this up with regular feedback on performance, effective training and dynamic assessment, they are more likely to be motivated to hit their goals and targets. And by ensuring that employees are supervised in a supportive, helpful environment, you can boost their sense of accomplishment when they take on and learn new skills or correctly carry out a task.

Skill development

The opportunity to develop and use their skills is important for many employees. This can be done through training and by increasing the range and type of work that they take on. By enabling them to improve their skills, you can help employees to develop more pride in themselves and a sense of loyalty to the workplace.

Fairness

No-one is happy if they are forced to be in an environment that is unfair. Too often employers make the mistake of thinking that operating in an ultra-competitive business environment justifies the existence of a survival-of-the-fittest mentality in the workplace, but this is counter-productive. Negative behavior, including bullying and unreasonable demands can create harmful reactions, and lead not only to interpersonal clashes, but also to high staff turnover.

By laying down a rigorous system for dealing with issues and ensuring that bullying is not tolerated, employers can create an environment that is positive, not toxic. Working with employee groups such as unions can also help resolve potential problems at an early stage.

The evidence is clear. A focus on wellbeing is a vital component in any successful business. If employees are happy, motivated and supported, their productivity will be higher, and your business will enjoy faster growth and increased staff morale.