Prioritising workplace wellbeing not only looks after your staff, it can look after your business as well. In fact, recent data from the HSE revealed that 1.4 million UK workers suffer from work-related ill health (e.g. conditions such as stress, depression, anxiety, musculoskeletal disorders or other illnesses that are caused or made worse by work).1
Employee wellbeing affects your bottom line in many ways. An unhealthy and disengaged workforce can have a significant impact on productivity and presents a real risk to your business. If people are happy at work, they'll work harder and be more productive - by up to 12%.2
But how do you go about creating and implementing a workplace wellbeing strategy? Here are our eight steps.
1. Get your programme startedLay the groundwork and structure for the overall wellbeing programme such as gaining support from management and seeking appropriate budget to invest.
2. Create a successful wellbeing teamA solid team is critical to your programme’s success as they will lead the way for other employees to transfers their lives and make positive, healthy choices. Consider a range of team members from all levels of the organisation.
3. Source data to enhance your programmeCollect data to allow you to further understand the health and wellbeing of your employees, as well as where to focus your programme efforts.
4. Focus your programme effortsReview what you currently offer to identify the gaps where additional strategies could be implemented. Then consider the cost, time, effort and potentially number of employees who will be impacted by your programme strategies to be able to decide what to include in your wellbeing programme.
5. Develop an action planNow you have your priorities, you need to develop a specific action plan to implement the objective including details of the staff, resources and materials to make it happen and the time-frame for completion.
6. Embrace social mediaSocial networking can be a low-cost solution to increase the effectiveness of your workplace wellbeing programme. Using it can increase participation and retention, help improve employee behaviours and save your organisation money. For example, set up a Facebook group for a lunchtime running group to help those with similar goals or interests to get involved and stay motivated to continue with the programme with their peers.
7. Calculate your ROIYou need to determine if your efforts are actually paying off. Gather feedback and calculate any change to show the value of your programme and benchmark your success. This could be based on a number of factors such as participation, satisfaction, behaviour change, productivity or cost savings.
8. Evaluate your programmeMeasure on a regular basis whether your employees’ attitudes, behaviours and health indicators have improved as a result of your programme. This will then allow you to make any necessary modifications to improve your results.
For more in-depth guidance on how to create a workplace wellbeing strategy, including useful tools download our latest whitepaper or speak to our experts.
Sources:1 HSE, October 20182 University of Warwick 'Happiness and Productivity' paper, Journal of Labor Economics, 2015
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