Leading-edge employers are embracing wellbeing as something incredibly important for the business, said Wendy Cartwright, former HR director at the Olympic Delivery Authority, in an interview with Debi O’Donovan, editor of Employee Benefits.
“Organisations are trying to get more upstream, and trying to focus on being more positive and proactive in that area,” she said. “Over recent times, the idea of wellbeing has overtaken a more narrow concern about stress management or absenteeism.
Cartwright is also on the Engage for Success taskforce, which published its paper, The evidence: wellbeing and employee engagement, in June, setting out evidence for the link between employee engagement and wellbeing.
“Our work has shown that there is definitely a correlation between highly engaged organisations and organisations that have got high wellbeing, where employees describe themselves as thriving.
“There is also a lot of evidence out there that says that, in terms of productivity, customer service, reduced absenteeism, reduced turnover and so forth, that this is all highly correlated.
“What we haven’t got yet is cause and effect. But, intuitively, it must be right.”
Cartwright spoke at the Employee Benefits Summit in Alicante, Spain on 14-16 May.
