In the last few years, the corporate world has seen a shift from what was once considered employee wellbeing. In the current workforce, wellbeing does not only apply to physical health, but also mental and social health, this has resulted in organization’s moving away from offering only traditional employee benefits but also investing in creating an environment to help employees thrive.
We’re seeing firms move away from throwing their employees a monthly pizza party and truly creating a collaborative environment and rewarding them in ways that are properly beneficial to their lifestyle and wellbeing. This means investing in upskilling their employees, providing growth opportunities, and seeing their employees as human beings rather than cogs in a machine.
Employee wellbeing & organizational success
Employee wellbeing isn’t just a feel-good initiative; it’s the way with which an organization truly thrives through creating a nurturing environment. Research consistently shows that employees who feel supported in their overall wellbeing are:
More productive: Healthy and happy employees perform better and are more engaged in their work.
More loyal: Investing in wellbeing fosters a sense of care, reduces turnover and builds employee loyalty.
Less absent: A focus on wellbeing reduces absenteeism by minimizing stress, burnout, and physical health issues.
In essence, prioritizing wellbeing creates a win-win scenario: employees feel valued and supported, and businesses enjoy the benefits of a motivated and committed workforce.
The Elements of Wellbeing
True wellbeing is achieved when all aspects of employee experience are considered. To do so, its imperative to view your employees as human beings first, the aspects that you should take into consideration when building a nurturing environment are:
Physical Health: This includes everything from ergonomic workspaces to encouraging regular movement and offering healthy food options.
Mental Health: Addressing stress, providing access to mental health resources, and encouraging a culture where it’s okay to discuss mental health.
Social Wellbeing: Building a sense of community through collaboration and team-building activities outside the office.
Professional Growth: Opportunities for skill-building, mentorship, and career progression.
When these elements are taken into account and used to nurture employees, they are much more likely to feel balanced, fulfilled, and ready to contribute their best work.
The role of employee wellbeing in retaining multi-age teams
Currently, Gen Z is slowly entering and dominating the global workforce. This has caused global companies to adapt to the requirements of their older and younger employees alike. Considering your employee wellbeing strategy is imminent in retaining talent that spans multiple age groups, to tackle your Gen Z team member, think about emphasizing on the following:
Creating emotionally intelligent leaders
Invest time in creating emotionally intelligent leaders! This is imperative in retaining an employee of any age group. An emotionally intelligent leader is one that leads with empathy, authenticity, and understanding; these traits directly result in the leader valuing their team members, making the workspace feel secure, and prioritises guidance over penalisation; further allowing employees to effectively learn from their potential mishaps.
Allow creative freedom
Gen Z team members have proven to be valuable in marketing teams as they have an advanced understanding of social media, digital strategies, and creating an online presence in general. To allow your marketing and social media departments to function to its full potential, try and be open to allowing creative freedom.
You should have a solid understanding of social media trends and plans that are yet to be executed but consider giving your team members an open hand once they have proven themselves with results.
Strategies to Promote Employee Wellbeing
1. Create a Supportive Environment
To create a truly supportive environment, you should encourage open communication by letting employees know that they can voice concerns and suggestions without fear of judgment. This can be achieved through regular check-ins and one-on-one meetings to help managers maintain a connection and stay attentive to their team’s needs and challenges.
Creating a supportive environment also means understanding that your employees have personal lives, to support this aspect it's best to implement flexible work policies to accommodate personal and professional balance.
2. Encourage Physical Activity
The office space should be inclusive of everybody’s general needs, you can start by offering standing desks or ergonomic furniture to support comfortable working conditions. It also helps to encourage walking meetings or provide time for regular stretch breaks. Another engaging initiative would be to consider organizing on-site fitness classes, or partner with gyms for discounted memberships.
3. Prioritize Mental Health
Prioritizing mental health in a workplace isn’t just about encouraging open communication, it is also evident in understanding when your employees need a break. It’s good to normalize discussions about mental health by creating a safe and stigma-free environment.
For initiatives, you can provide access to counseling services, or mindfulness/meditation workshops. Rather than just celebrating mental health calendar days, encourage your employees to use their time off to avoid burnout. It would also help to pay attention to your employees and check-in when you feel they’re stressed or overworked.
4. Foster Social Connections
The office space becomes a place to look forward to when the traditional employee-employer relationship is more friendly, understanding and overall supportive. This can be done through hosting certain team-building activities, lunches, or even casual social events.
These events encourage colleague recognition by highlighting not only employee achievements but also appreciating any milestone that an employee has achieved either personally or professionally. These conversations and events effortlessly build an inclusive culture where every employee feels valued and respected.
5. Support Career Development
In recent years, people have understood that work is a part of life. It is an aspect that dictates a person’s quality and standard of living. People can work out of passion, but if not rewarded, that passion and enthusiasm can fade. By offering opportunities for learning, employers directly impact the trajectory and growth of their employee’s career.
There should be a clear and attainable path for growth within organisations, this allows the employee to feel not only valued but also nurtured in the correct direction. Companies that invest in employee growth tend to have better employee retention rates. To create a collaborative approach, it would be good to consider your top staff to lead mentorship programs.
Measuring the Impact of Wellbeing Programs
To ensure the effectiveness of wellbeing initiatives, it’s important to track their impact. Think about implementing these approaches to measure your success:
Employee satisfaction surveys to properly understand how supported employees feel.
Retention and turnover rates to identify the long-term effects of wellbeing programs.
Productivity and absenteeism statistics to measure operational improvements.
Regular feedback from employees is invaluable. It allows organizations to refine their programs and ensure they’re addressing real needs. Promoting employee wellbeing is no longer optional—it’s a vital part of fostering a thriving, resilient, and productive workforce. By addressing the physical, mental, social, and professional needs of employees, organizations can create a culture where everyone has the opportunity to succeed.
Investing in wellbeing is an investment in people, and when people thrive, businesses thrive. Whether you’re a leader looking to enhance your company’s wellbeing initiatives or an employee eager to advocate for better practices, there’s no better time to act than now.
At Sensate, we focus on employee, brand and client experience. We use these 3 key aspects to help your brand and business thrive by implementing a human approach and emphasizing what “experience” truly means.
Written by Mehak Shoaib in Collaboration with Ben Safra
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