Why employee wellbeing is a top business priority

A recent roundtable discussion revealed that HR professionals from diverse UK businesses agree that prioritising employee wellbeing is a “smart business strategy, yielding returns for both employers and employees.”

We explored crucial questions, such as why businesses should prioritise employee wellbeing, how organisations can cultivate a positive wellbeing culture and the ways HR and business leaders can spearhead a wellbeing culture in their workplace. Here are my key takeaways.

Why should employee wellbeing be a business priority?

By investing in employee wellbeing, businesses can achieve profitability and success while offering positive experiences for both customers and employees. Benefits include:

• Attracting and keeping top talent for a competitive edge
• Boosting productivity and profits through healthier and happier employees
• Improving customer satisfaction and loyalty with a more engaged workforce
• Meeting environmental, social and governance (ESG) mandates by measuring employee wellbeing
• Reducing healthcare costs by reducing sickness absence and medical expenses

How can organisations create and sustain a positive employee wellbeing culture?

Organisations can build a positive wellbeing culture by creating supportive and engaging workplaces.

Encouraging open communication, offering career opportunities and promoting work-life balance can help to reduce stress.

Providing fair pay and benefits highlights the organisation's commitment to wellbeing. Adapting to employees' evolving needs through innovative approaches, such as new pay options and work models, further boosts satisfaction and wellbeing.

Steps for HR and business leaders to kickstart a culture of wellbeing in their organisation

Establish agile and adaptable models that ensure equitable use for employees, regardless of location or working environment.

Each organisation's wellbeing strategy will differ, but implementing these seven baseline steps can foster trust, transparency and engagement. This creates a sustainable and beneficial wellbeing culture.

1. Perform a workplace culture audit to find areas for improvement
2. Involve key stakeholders in cultivating a wellbeing culture
3. Create a clear vision and strategy for the wellbeing culture, communicating it to all employees
4. Establish policies and programs promoting employee wellbeing
5. Supply resources and training for managers and leaders to support employee wellbeing
6. Foster open and honest communication about employee wellbeing
7. Regularly assess and fine-tune the wellbeing culture strategy

Enhance your employee wellbeing program with mobile apps and a cloud-based experience platform

To ensure an organisation's employee wellbeing programme is successful, it must deliver a user-friendly and personalised experience. This requires selecting the best tools, platform and technologies to support the company’s evolving wellbeing strategy.

By integrating artificial intelligence and machine learning, personalised recommendations and insights can be delivered to employees. This can improve health outcomes and retention rates.

Managers need a dashboard to track progress, check engagement and monitor programme success. Reporting, analytics and metrics tools are essential for evaluating the programme's success and measuring return on investment (ROI) and value of investment (VOI).

Choosing the right wellbeing programme vendor for your need

Choose a wellbeing vendor with end-to-end support, including training and maintenance services for a successful programme launch and ongoing optimisation.

Whether building in-house or using a solution, like Alight Well, select a vendor that meets your needs.

The agility of a company's wellbeing programme delivery and content can significantly impact its success, from engaging employees to achieving the best outcomes for individuals, the workforce, the business and other stakeholders.

Measuring progress is important to determine how effective a wellbeing programme is. By tracking user engagement, businesses can identify which groups of people are actively using the programme and those who are not.

Using data to inform decision-making can be key to realising the full value of a wellbeing strategy. By understanding why some people are not using the resources, changes can be made to improve engagement and participation.

Regularly monitoring programme progress using key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics can evaluate success, measure return on investment (ROI) and improve the programme's effectiveness.

This approach allows businesses to unlock the best value outcomes for all stakeholders.

Alight Worklife employee engagement platform

Alight Worklife serves as an integrated employee experience platform catering to both employees and employers.

The platform incorporates a comprehensive range of tools and apps into a single platform, offering a seamless experience that meets an individual’s unique needs and goals.

In conclusion, making employee wellbeing a priority makes good business sense. The investment in people supports growth and competitiveness. It yields positive ROI and VOI, positioning it as a wise decision for any business.