Employee Well-being

If it isn’t already clear, 2022 is the year of the Employee!

As we gear up and prepare for the Great Resignation and look towards what the 2022 working model looks like, it’s a good opportunity to reflect on where we have come from, how we’ve adapted and how we will continue to grow beyond the challenges we’ve faced.

One of those areas is Employee Well-being. We know that in certain industries, Employees are starting to or have already burnt out. We know that there is a lack of talent in other industries, and we know that the human capital that International Visa holders bring are in limited supply.

Managing these uncertainties can be challenging, hence why having a holistic framework around Employee Well-being is a great way of creating a culture focused on workplace welfare.

Areas to focus on when promoting Employee Well-being

Emotional

Never before has there been such an importance placed on mental health. This is a key area that many Employers are looking to address. It is known that COVID-19 has trigged a stress response across society. Companies are taking deliberate actions to de-stigmatize mental health and creating new commitments for the hybrid workplace. These commitments around well-being, inclusion, and flexibility underscore a belief that work is not where you go but what you do to deliver results. Being an Employer that leads with empathy and creates flexibility for their Employees will help enable the openness that some Employees will need to work through their struggles. It enables the whole team the ability to work in an environment that suits their preferred style whilst enabling them to manage their own set of circumstances.

Social

Having meaningful friendships in both your personal and work life is one of the key predictors to long term happiness. The term “work wife” was coined as a result of having someone in the business close to you that can provide the support that perhaps a personal relationship can but in a professional capacity. Without those meaningful in person interactions at work, Employees can feel less engaged and, in some degree, lonely as the only interaction they have with the workplace is virtual. Whilst this can be seen as a double edge sword, trying to balance this can be tricky. Employers should if possible, look for ways to engage in person at least quarterly or bi annually so that the group can come together as a collective and allow further development of those workplace relationships.

Financial

As talent is becoming harder to find and Employers become desperate to employ, one tactic to assist in recruiting is by having high compensation or sign on bonuses. Remaining competitive in the marketplace by ensuring that your renumeration packages are structured in a way that sets you out from a crowd, will minimise Employees being tempted by another offer. Never before have Employees had the opportunity to review so much data around salaries, with the likes of benchmarking now freely available on the internet, thus enabling them to be almost ahead of the game in terms of knowing their worth..

Career

Having had time to evaluate their lifestyle, Employees could possibly be looking towards re-evaluating their career goals. You only have to look at the data on people relocating from metropolitan areas to regional areas to understand that lifestyle is having a larger impact then many might like to admit.

How as a business do Employers ensure they can adapt to this potential talent pool not wanting a physical presence in their offices? Can work still be done remotely? Are there ways of creating a hybrid model? Does an infrastructure upgrade need to be done to support this change in work conditions?

Physical

When people think about physical well-being, the standard concepts of exercise, sleep, overall lifestyle and food choices are usually mentioned. In a workplace setting, supporting these concepts might mean having a walking meeting or setting group reminders to stand up regularly. It might be removing emails from phones. Businesses can introduce tactics that enable their Employees to gain back a sense of work life balance, and allow them time and opportunity to enhance their physical well-being.

Using this holistic approach to Employee Well-being is a good way to evaluate where you currently are and where you want to be. Employee well-being will continue to be a hot topic, it will continue to be an area of focus and it is simply not one that can be ignored. Employees have greater control on designing the perfect lifestyle that they want. For some, this will mean changing roles or businesses.  They have adapted their lifestyle and will continue to adapt accordingly. If a business isn’t interesting in doing the same, then we land back at where we started from with ‘The Great Resignation.’

If you’d like to talk more about a strategy to promote people positivity in the workplace, please reach out to Now Actually and together we can work a tailored solution for you.