The most important company’s asset are the people who are part of it. For a successful business, it is essential that employees stay motivated and with good performance that leads them to achieve all objectives. For that reason, it is not enough to incentivize based on salary: Employee Wellness is a key element for the team’s commitment.
So, People departments that want to maximize the results of the organization must have prepared a Wellness Program that ensures that all employees work in optimal, healthy and positive conditions.
It is crucial to take care of the quality of life of workers so the company grows in a stable and sustainable way. And, to help you in this challenge, we have prepared this article where we tell you what is an Employee Wellness Program, what are the advantages for the company when implementing this type of strategy and what are the exact steps that you must carry out at the time to develop your own Wellness Plan.
What is an Employee Wellness Program?
An Employee Wellness Program is a set of actions aimed at improving the quality of life of employees in their workplace. These types of initiatives contribute to a correct balance between personal and work life, better professional development and the creation of a healthy environment where people feel happy to go to work every day.
The main goal of these measures is to foster habits that have a positive impact on the physical and mental health of employees, which in turn makes it possible to improve motivation, creativity, productivity and satisfaction for much more efficient overall results.
In addition, a well-prepared and put into practice Wellness Plan helps to retain talent and improves the attraction of the best qualified candidates, since a company that takes care of its workers is an excellent claim for all those people who are looking for committed employers with good clear ethical values.
In short, it is a strategy that seeks to put people at the center of business management, attending to their basic needs to integrate and align them with corporate goals, without forgetting that each individual has a life outside the company that also has the right to prioritize.
Advantages of implementing an Employee Wellness Plan
According to the report “2021 Global Wellbeing Survey ” elaborated by the professional services company AON: 89% of companies around the world already have some type of wellness strategy.
As revealed by the study itself, these are the benefits that implementing a well-defined Work Well-being Plan brings to the company:
- Increases customer satisfaction, acquisition and loyalty.
- Boosts employee motivation and performance.
- Maximizes the net results of the company.
- Decreases the voluntary turnover rate and absenteeism.
- Facilitates the feeling of belonging.
- Improves the work environment and teamwork.
- Spreads a positive employer brand image that attracts candidates, investors, and customers.
In fact, there are more studies that support the effectiveness of Wellness Programs. For example, research from the University of Warwick claims that satisfied employees are 12% more productive than their dissatisfied colleagues.
Another study conducted by the Society for Work and Organizational Psychology found that Workplace Wellness programs can reduce stress and improve the mental and physical health of employees, thereby reducing the costs associated with sick leave.
And, along the same lines, this research from the University of La Sabana found that Employee Wellness Programs can reduce the symptoms of Burnout Syndrome by up to 24%, and emotional exhaustion by 35%.
Steps to develop an effective Employee Wellness Program
Implementing a Wellness Program for employees is not an easy task. It requires investing time in finding out what team members really value and, in addition, you also need an adequate budget to cover the actions that need to be carried out.
However, it is a worthwhile effort because, as we have already seen, the return on profits allows the company to grow and develop, creating its own niche in the market ahead of the competition.
Now, we are going to see what are the phases through which every Work Well-being Program effective must go through to give results:
Identifying the needs of employees
A successful Employee Wellness Program needs to cover the needs of employees. Otherwise, it wouldn’t make sense. So, the first step is to get to know the people who work with you and find out what aspects they value the most.
Using an employee engagement software like Team Insights you can have access to detailed information about their expectations in the company. This will make it easier for you to devise an action plan that fit your employees, allowing you to launch initiatives that really have a positive impact in their quality life.
This type of tool allows directors and managers to receive a large amount of feedback in a comfortable, simple and fast way for a much more agile and efficient management of people’s well-being.
Setting goals
Once you are clear about the priorities of your employees, the next step is to establish the objectives of the Wellness Plan. It means, what do you want to achieve?
The information extracted from the previous stage will serve as a guide to know what steps your organization needs to take to meet the needs of your employees.
Although the objective of all strategies of this type is to improve general well-being, it is important to identify clear objectives that facilitate the implementation of specific measures in the short term.
For example, suppose that the employees of a company have expressed in a well-being survey that what worries them the most is not being able to reconcile work and family life, which causes them stress and anxiety. Therefore, the survey score in the Work-Life Balance dimension is 3 points out of 10.
In this case, a clear goal could be to improve the Work-Life balance dimension score to 7 points in a period of 6 months.
Remember: for a successful Employee Wellness Plan, it must focus on people.
Setting specific actions
With the objectives set, the next step is to establish the actions that the company will carry out to meet these objectives.
There are many and very varied actions and measures to address an Employee Well-being Plan, and all of them will depend to a large extent on the type of company and the reserved budget. Among the most popular measures included in a Wellness Program we find:
- Family assistance.
- Medical insurance.
- Flexible schedule.
- Training programs.
- Psychological Support.
- Financial Support.
- Sports and leisure activities.
- Afterwork and Team Building.
Either way, these actions must fit the company’s identity and must also be assessable.
Continuing with the previous example:
- Goal: Improve employee’s Work-Life balance perception to 7 points in 6 months.
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- Action 1: Analyze the workloads by departments and areas to detect the problem.
- Action 2: Implement a flexible work shedule.
- Action 3: Facilitate time management training programs.
Evaluating the impact
Finally, we must not forget to monitor the Employee Wellness Program actions. Assessing the results and progress allows us to know if, indeed, the measures we have taken benefit the workforce or, on the contrary, we must redefine the plan.
These assessments should not be isolated but should be done continuously. So, the frequent feedback from employees will tell us what we must reinforce, improve or eliminate to create a healthy and positive work environment for both their physical and emotional health.
Again, an Employee Engagement software like Team Insights makes this task easy for you. Through pulse surveys you can know exactly what the state of your team is and how the measures promoted affect your organization in real time.
In conclusion…
No two Wellness Programs are the same in the same way that no two companies are the same. For yours to be successful, it is essential to put people at the center knowing what matters most to them, and then designing a plan that meets the expectations of your team.
The greater the knowledge of the people around you, the greater the definition of the Wellbeing Program and, therefore, the better results for your company!
