4 Tips for Establishing a Rewarding Employee Wellbeing Strategy
Now more than ever, organisations need to look after their workforce, particularly their wellbeing. Right now, organisations have an opportunity (and a responsibility) to establish and enforce a rewarding employee wellbeing strategy so that, at the least, productivity is maintained. And a wellbeing strategy is not just useful now, but for the long term too, which is why this is the ideal time to introduce it.
Wellbeing encompasses physical, mental and emotional health. A wellbeing strategy focuses particularly on the triggers that infringe on these, and the management techniques to deal with, and overcome them. While there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to personal wellbeing, organisations ought to be aware of the work-related triggers employees are likely to face, and should provide the appropriate management techniques to ensure employees are physically, mentally and emotionally healthy.
4 Tips for Establishing a Rewarding Employee Wellbeing Strategy
1. Establish open communication
When it comes to establishing a wellbeing strategy, the most important element for success is communication. Understanding what employees feel – particularly their work-related stresses and struggles, is important and will guide your strategy. This is, essentially, an employee engagement exercise: employees provide the ‘data’ which leads the decision-making process.
If your employee engagement strategy is strong, communication should be easy, and implementing a wellbeing strategy will further strengthen the ‘bond’ between management and workforce. If you have a non-existent employee engagement strategy, implementing a wellbeing strategy makes for a great start. Employees will feel heard, valued and appreciated, while the organisation benefits from having engaged, well-balanced employees.
2. Define the meaning of wellbeing in your organisation
It’s important that your wellbeing strategy aligns with your core values, mission and vision. Your wellbeing strategy will not be a rewarding one if it does not, for example, increase productivity, profit, and improve engagement.
Each organisation will have its own set of expectations, and it’s important that these are outlined in the strategy, otherwise, a wellbeing strategy can feel pointless. The truth is, it’s not the responsibility of the organisation to provide stress management techniques and improve the wellbeing of individuals – but it’s done because a healthy workforce means improved results.
3. Provide support and encourage action
During this time especially, organisations are required to check in with their workforce and make sure they’re coping with the current work-related and lifestyle changes. While the employee wellbeing strategy works best in-office where communication channels have already been established and where progress can be measured, it’s not impossible to have it work under these circumstances, where employees are working from home.
The best way to go about introducing and inforcing your employee wellbeing strategy right now is to create online focus groups where positive affirmations and stress management techniques can be shared. A great way to get employees excited about attending to their wellbeing is by creating a culture and community of positivity. Perhaps individuals can share their personal tips, informational sources and wellbeing exercises for others to learn from and get comfortable with (e.g. sharing interesting content such as blogs and podcasts that provide useful information and food for thought). But for a ‘remote’ wellbeing strategy to take off, management needs to lead the way.
4. Eliminate taboo
Organisations know that their workforce deal with both personal, and work-related challenges – (and not just during this time). It’s not unusual for employees to feel fatigued and stressed, and your organisation’s wellbeing strategy should address this. For example, encourage employees to properly rest outside of their working hours, and encourage them to exercise when they can (e.g. during this time they can make use of free online tutorials from home). Encourage learning such as reading educational books, listening to informative podcasts, or even taking up a hobby to cope with day-to-day stress and anxiety. Again, managers need to lead by example, whether it be through sharing their own experiences and stress-management techniques, or by sharing external sources of information.