Are you keen on employing strategies to elevate employee wellbeing in your workplace? If so, you’re in the right place. This blog post will share the ultimate guide to employee wellbeing Dubai. From the basics of what it is and why it matters to actionable tips for how you can begin implementing it at work, you can find everything you need to get started here.
What is employee wellbeing?
Employee wellbeing is a term used to describe employees’ holistic health––– physical, emotional, mental, nutritional, and career wellbeing. An employee wellbeing program is designed to help employees maintain a healthy lifestyle and improve their overall wellbeing.
In like manner, corporate wellbeing is essential to the success of any business as it improves employee productivity, engagement, and retention. Not to mention, it also reduces stress levels and absenteeism and improves overall job satisfaction. When employees are happy and healthy, businesses thrive.
Why does employee wellbeing at work matter?
It’s no secret that happy employees are more productive. However, wellbeing at the workplace is about more than happiness. It’s also about feeling supported and valued at work, having a sense of purpose, and feeling like you’re part of a community.
When employees feel good at work, they’re more likely to be engaged, show increased resilience, give high performance, have lower absent rates, and are more likely to stay with your company. Researchers have found that people with higher levels of wellbeing are more cooperative and charitable, more friendly and energetic and better liked by others. Also, they have more ingenuity in their thinking and tend to be more creative.
Read More: Employee Experience
How does employee wellbeing affect employee retention and performance?
Workplace wellbeing has a significant impact on both retention and performance. Many factors contribute to employee wellbeing, such as the following:
People and culture: Employees are more likely to be retained and perform well in an organization if they feel like they are a good fit with the culture and values of the company. This means that employers must be aware of the culture and values that are important to their employees and ensure they align the two.
Work acknowledgment: Active listening from leadership and recognizing accomplishments are vital factors in employee retention. Feeling appreciated for their work leads to employees feeling more valued and, in turn, being more likely to stick around at a company.
Meaningful benefits: According to a Linkedin survey, 44% of professionals care about strong workplace benefits such as parental leave, healthcare benefits and paid time off. Offering benefits does not reduce your business margin because an Oxford University study shows workers are more productive and effective when they’re happy.
Ongoing training: When you invest in employees, you show them you care for their professional growth. This action feeds into a positive loop of motivation, belonging, productivity and retention.
Workplace environment: Workplace aesthetics are essential in employee retention and performance. A well-designed and aesthetically pleasing workplace can foster a positive work environment, increasing employee productivity and satisfaction.
Mission and values alignment: The values of an organisation influence employee retention and performance by setting expectations for employees and providing guidance on how they should behave. Values can also help create a sense of pride and loyalty among employees, leading to higher levels of motivation and commitment. This can lead to improved performance as employees feel more invested in their work and are more likely to go above and beyond what is expected.
How does employee wellbeing affect employee engagement?
Did you know that employee wellbeing can directly impact employee engagement? Studies have shown that there is a strong correlation between the two.
Simple ways to improve employee wellbeing include offering health and wellness benefits, creating a supportive and positive work environment and showing your employees that you are interested in their wellbeing.
Here are some tips for enhancing wellbeing at work inspired by the HBR interview with Andre Spicer, Co-author of The Wellness Syndrome.
Collect employee feedback
Having ongoing conversations with employees about wellbeing can help you create programs that address topics your employees are more interested in and can help start the programs off on the right track.
Aim for minor changes that make a significant impact
Although corporate wellbeing is essential, it need not be costly to be effective. Small changes, such as having a standing desk, providing materials to learn about financial literacy and offering healthy snacks, can help immensely.
Be realistic
Set realistic goals about what you want to achieve from a corporate wellbeing program and what you hope employees will get out of it.
How does employee wellbeing impact business performance?
Wellbeing is an ethos and commitment to creating a healthier, happier, more productive workforce community and the world. It is up to the leaders within the organisation to focus on empowering and creating the condition for employees to thrive personally, professionally, physically and financially.
By studying organisations’ market success, experts established a correlation between employee health and safety and the health of the bottom line. Researchers found the portfolio of award-winning enterprises beats the market in terms of their commitment to employee health and safety. This study suggests that fostering a health and safety culture gives a competitive advantage in the marketplace.
Similarly, a study published in Knowledge Base found that the wellbeing of employees influences their organisation’s productivity and performance, increasing employee performance and decreasing stress-related compensation claims.
Also, wellbeing means high morale, more positive emotions, less distress and higher job satisfaction. Likewise, it means reduced withdrawal behaviours such as unexplained absence and stressful event turnover.
Why should employers invest in employee wellbeing?
Employers have a duty of care to the individuals they hire, which means they must protect the employee’s health and wellbeing. A comprehensive employee wellbeing plan will attract the best talent to your business, helping your company develop.
Employees feel nurtured
Introduce policies and initiatives that improve employees’ lives so they know you genuinely value them. Employees that bring the same commitment and loyalty to work will help to build a great corporate culture and contribute meaningfully at work.
Help your people be proactive.
You can help employees take control of their wellbeing by giving them the tools they need from day one. VIWELL has a range of helpful employee wellbeing services that can make your workforce more productive and happier.
Your company’s reputation will increase
Commitment to workplace wellbeing will help cement your reputation as a top employer. Similarly, your company’s employee-friendly healthcare benefits will make any job offer more tempting.
Why should employee wellbeing be your top priority?
Employee wellbeing should be your top priority because it is essential to the health and productivity of your workforce.
Higher retention rates
Employees are more likely to stick around at their jobs when they are happy and healthy. Wellbeing programs focusing on fitness, nutrition, mental health, and stress management can help decrease turnover rates and lead to a more engaged and productive workforce.
Lower burnout rates
Burnout has been linked to decreased productivity, absenteeism, and employee turnover. Having burnout employees can be a huge red flag that employee wellbeing should be given priority within an organisation. Studies show 71% of employees are less likely to experience burnout when prioritising their wellbeing.
Enhanced brand reputation
When employees are happy and healthy, they are more likely to be productive and engaged in their work. This creates a positive impression of the company among clients and other external stakeholders. In addition, employee wellbeing can help attract and retain top talent, as prospective employees increasingly consider factors such as work/life balance and company culture when making job decisions.
How to create an effective employee wellbeing program?
Launching a successful corporate wellbeing program for your employees includes many steps.
Get the management to buy in.
To obtain top-level support, you likely need to provide a presentation to the executives, communicate the program’s value by including employee benefits, employer benefits, and strategic goals, and tailor your presentation to the company mission and objectives and the leadership style of executives.
Finding out the needs of employees
Conduct a workplace survey and question employees about particular lifestyles, health habits, and concerns to tailor the employee wellbeing program to cater to them.
Form a workplace wellness committee.
Once you have a broad idea of what employees desire, form a committee—a group of employees who will assist, plan the launch and advocate for the employee wellbeing program inside your company. Employees can be chosen from many corporate levels and departments, such as the leadership team, IT, human resources, and the general employee population.
Allocating a budget
Decide how much you can afford to spend on a program type that suits your budget. You may include the expenses in the following to finalise a budget.
- Fees for employees’ benefits, insurance companies and wellness vendors
- Program promotion cost
- Cost of the time spent by staff on promoting program planning
Establish a corporate wellbeing program
Gather your wellbeing community and compile a few broad types of employee wellbeing programs, such as
- Education programs
- Community building
- Preventative care programs
- Healthy habits
- Disease management
Collaboration between an employee benefits firm and wellness vendors
Work directly with an insurance broker that caters to your budget and the employee wellbeing program you want to offer. Also, you will need to choose and then connect with a local wellness vendor to provide various services you have listed in your program. For example, VIWELL is a wellness vendor that offers affordable, personalised and effective service on physical, emotional, financial, nutritional, professional and social pillars of employee wellbeing.
Market the workplace wellbeing program
Publish employee wellbeing program guidelines as part of your employee handbook, just like any other employee regulations you produce. Distribute posters across the office to inform employees about wellness activities. Likewise, distribute the employee handbook when recruiting and enrolling workers in these benefit programs.
Inform your employees about the newly developed initiative.
An on-site health and wellness fair for employees and their families is the ideal approach for organisations to inform employees about the plan. To make this a successful event, collaborate with local merchants and incorporate a wide range of interests, such as nutrition, stress management, and fitness.
Gather feedback and results for future improvements
Make sure to collect feedback and meet with the wellbeing committee regularly to brainstorm ideas to improve the program. Collect positive stories from those who participate in these programs. Highlighting these experiences might help recruit non-participants to the program, increasing its popularity among employees.
What are the six pillars of holistic employee wellbeing?
The six pillars of employee wellbeing are physical, financial, emotional, social, nutritional, and professional. Each pillar supports the others and helps create a foundation for a healthy and fulfilling life. Employee wellbeing is important because it leads to greater productivity, creativity, and engagement at work. It also results in less stress, absenteeism, and turnover.
Social wellbeing
The social wellbeing pillar of holistic employee wellbeing refers to an individual’s sense of connectedness, belonging, and community. As an employer, it’s important to create a culture of togetherness to promote collaboration and knowledge sharing and create an environment of transparency, trust and opportunities for connection and relationship building. This pillar is essential because it can help reduce stress, improve mental health, and boost job satisfaction.
Emotional wellbeing:
Emotional wellbeing is vital to holistic employee wellbeing. Some strategies that can promote emotional wellbeing include:
•Encouraging positive thinking and self-talk.
•Fostering positive relationships with co-workers.
•Creating a supportive work environment.
•Encouraging employees to find work-life balance.
• Promoting physical activity and healthy eating.
• Helping employees manage stress in healthy ways.
•Encouraging employees to take advantage of employee assistance programs.
Physical wellbeing:
The physical wellbeing pillar of employee wellbeing is centred around ensuring that employees are physically healthy and able to perform their jobs to the best of their abilities. This includes providing access to health services and resources, promoting healthy lifestyle choices, and creating a work environment conducive to physical health and safety.
Nutritional wellbeing:
A holistic approach to employee wellbeing includes promoting nutritional wellbeing. This means ensuring employees have access to healthy food options and encouraging them to make healthy choices. It also means providing education and resources on nutrition, so employees can make informed choices about what they eat. By promoting nutritional wellbeing, employers can help their employees maintain a healthy weight, have more energy and reduce their risk of developing chronic diseases.
Professional wellbeing
The professional wellbeing pillar of holistic employee wellbeing covers all aspects of an employee’s work life, from their physical work environment to job satisfaction. Here are some tips to enhance the professional wellbeing of employees.
- Encouraging employees to take breaks throughout the day, including a lunch break.
- Promoting a healthy work-life balance by encouraging employees to take advantage of flexible work hours and telecommuting options when possible.
- Offering opportunities for professional development, such as attending conferences and taking on additional responsibilities.
- Encouraging employees to get involved in company-sponsored charity or volunteer events.
- Ensuring the workplace is safe and comfortable and that employees have the tools and resources to do their job effectively.
- Recognising and rewarding employees for their hard work and achievements.
Financial wellbeing
Employees’ financial wellbeing is important to employers for various reasons. Poor financial wellbeing can lead to decreased productivity, higher absenteeism and presenteeism rates, and increased stress levels. All of these can hurt an employer’s bottom line. Employers may help their employees improve their financial wellbeing in a variety of ways:
- Provide financial education and counselling
- Encourage people to save
- Giving discounts
- Offer financial support
- Encourage good spending habits.
What are the top ways to boost employee wellbeing in 2023?
It is key to boosting employee wellbeing in 2023 to promote a healthy and productive workforce. Happy employees are more likely to stay with a company, reducing turnover rates.
Increasing employee morale:
To improve workplace wellbeing, it is critical to reduce distressing situations and improve positive experiences that foster positive feelings towards work. The most effective way to increase morale and decrease stress in the workplace is to improve leadership styles and employee recognition and make employee responsibilities clear. Workplace counselling services may also increase support and confidence in the workplace.
Survey your people to understand how they feel
According to APA, 88% of today’s workforce report experiencing burnout, and 60% of employees report high levels of burnout. Burnout has become almost an accepted part of the workplace worldwide. As an employer, you give your employees the opportunities to express themselves freely, they can voice out their concerns, get them solved and enable them to succeed professionally.
Improve healthcare costs and benefits
The key to supporting your employees is giving them the means to access the care they need, including emotional and mental health care. Today almost 1 billion people worldwide suffer from mental health conditions. As an employer, you cannot ignore this dangerous trend. It would help if you made your employees’ mental health and wellbeing an integral part of the workforce wellbeing strategy.
Prioritise mental health training for company leaders
Giving mental health training to company leaders can help them understand how and when to take what kind of action. Support for mental health and wellness must come from the top, where leaders drive people-first initiatives and make efforts to build a unique company culture where employees feel valued. This translates into higher employee engagement efficiency and satisfaction, ultimately improving the company’s bottom line.
Prioritise time off and work
Time off is necessary for today’s workforce’s health and wellbeing. Here are some tips on how to prioritise time off and work balance for employees include:
- Encouraging employees to take regular vacations and time off to prevent burnout.
- Working with employees to create a schedule that meets their needs and allows them to take time off when needed.
- Offering flexible work hours or telecommuting options to employees who need to balance their time between work and personal responsibilities.
- Using time tracking software to help employees better understand and manage their time at work.
- Encouraging employees to use their paid time off to recharge and rejuvenate themselves.
How to develop a strong employee wellbeing strategy?
Employee wellbeing is linked to higher job satisfaction and motivation and improved physical and mental health. In turn, this can lead to increased productivity and fewer absences. A strong employee wellbeing strategy is, therefore, beneficial for both employees and employers.
Conduct a needs assessment to identify the critical focus areas for your employee wellbeing strategy.
There are a few key areas to focus on when conducting a needs assessment for employee wellbeing:
Company culture
What is the company culture like? Do employees feel like they have a good work/life balance? Do they feel like their work is meaningful and has a positive impact?
Communication
How well do employees communicate with their managers and co-workers? Do they think their voices are heard, and they can openly speak about their needs?
Engagement
How engaged are employees in their work? Do they feel like they can do their best work and that their work is fulfilling?
Stress
How much stress do employees feel at work? Do they feel like they can manage their stress levels? Are there any particular problem areas they’re dealing with?
Develop clear goals and objectives for your employee wellbeing strategy.
By determining what you hope to achieve with your wellbeing strategy, you can create specific goals and objectives that are achievable and measurable. Additionally, setting clear goals and objectives will ensure that your strategy aligns with your company’s overall business objectives and enhance employee productivity.
Choose evidence-based interventions and activities aligned with your goals and objectives.
A wealth of interventions and activities effectively support individuals in reaching their goals and objectives. When choosing which evidence-based interventions and activities to use, it is essential to consider which ones are most likely aligned with your goals and objectives. This will ensure that you are using interventions and activities that are supported by research and are most likely to lead to positive outcomes.
Evaluate the impact of your employee wellbeing strategy regularly.
When it comes to employee wellbeing, it’s essential to evaluate the impact of your strategy regularly. This will help you determine whether or not your strategy is effective and identify any areas that need improvement. There are a few key indicators you can use to evaluate the impact of your employee wellbeing strategy:
- Employee engagement: Do employees feel engaged with the wellbeing program and activities?
- Participation rates: What percentage of employees are participating in the program?
- Health and productivity outcomes: Are employees reporting improved health and productivity outcomes?
- Absenteeism: Have absenteeism rates decreased since implementing the wellbeing strategy?
- Costs: Have health care or productivity savings offset the program’s costs?
Regular evaluation of your employee wellbeing strategy will help ensure that it is effective and positively impacts employee health and wellbeing.
What are some best practices to foster an environment of employee wellbeing?
Workplace wellbeing is now front and centre in just about every organisation’s wellbeing strategic plan. Here are some of the preferred methods of doing that
Give employees a greater say over how they conduct their jobs:
According to research, having little control over your job concerns is associated with poor mental health and an elevated risk of heart disease. The combination of excessive work demands and inadequate job management significantly increases the risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Even little increases in employee autonomy can greatly influence staff wellbeing.
Allow employees more freedom in terms of when and where they work.
According to research, offering employees more choices or control over their work schedules enhances their mental health. Giving employees greater control over how and where they will work can improve their work-life balance, enhance productivity, and increase job satisfaction. Allowing workers to work from home, establish their own hours, or use flexible scheduling might help them manage their personal and professional duties more effectively.
Increase the stability of workers’ schedule
Research finds that many adverse outcomes occur for workers with erratic work schedules, including poor sleep quality and emotional distress. A research study found that a stable work schedule can increase both the company’s and its employees’ benefits. According to research, a stable work schedule for workers led to a 7% rise in sales and a 5% increase in labour productivity. Also, workers enjoyed improved sleep quality and reduced stress levels.
Provide employees with chances to identify and solve workplace problems
A study about burnout in healthcare workers found that those invited to participate in a structured process of identifying problems in their workplace exhibited decreased rates of burnout and increased job satisfaction. Also, those employees said they wanted to stay with the organisation, a key benefit for companies trying to retain valuable employees.
Keep your organisation adequately staffed so workloads are reasonable.
Numerous studies have pointed out that high work demands could cause higher rates of depression, cardiovascular disease and high blood pressure. Staffing in a targeted way benefits both employers and employees by increasing employee productivity and boosting the business’s bottom line.
Encourage managers in your organisation to assist workers with their personal needs.
Many employees additionally provide care for their children or ageing parents. They gain from understanding and supportive managers encouraging them to take on new tasks and balance their work and personal lives. According to one study, employees with supportive supervisors had a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease, slept better, reported higher job satisfaction and better job performance, and were less likely to leave their positions.
How to build a culture of holistic employee wellbeing with VIWELL?
While preparing your employee wellbeing programs, flexibility is essential to ensure everyone is taken care of. Designing employee value propositions focusing on the whole person, including emotional, physical, social, financial, career, and nutritional wellbeing, creates a better experience for your people.
VIWELL is a total people wellbeing platform that improves employee engagement, productivity, and work-life balance, enhances overall employee wellbeing, and helps you attract and retain top employees. So, if you want to increase your employee wellbeing, please call us. Our experts will help you achieve your goals.