Your employees’ wellbeing is crucial to the success of your business. Your business can have all the clients and customers in the world, but if your employees are burnt out, overworked and underappreciated, soon you’ll have no one to serve them. But of course, if you’re here reading this, then you know that already!
Employee wellbeing has suffered in recent years, with reports showing workers are now more stressed at work than they have ever been. In response, we’ve seen businesses introduce more and more initiatives aimed at improving employee wellbeing: Flexible working hours, hybrid and remote working, four-day work weeks, and physical and mental wellbeing support.
But what is right for your business isn’t the same as what’s right for someone else. So we want to give you all the advice we give to the employers and businesses we work with here at Dynamic. Then you can implement the employee wellbeing strategies that are right for your business.
Why Employee Wellbeing Is So Important
Employee wellbeing is the mental and physical wellbeing of your employees, relating to their work. This can include their actual job and their day-to-day responsibilities, their career and professional development, and the social environment of the company.
But what a strong employee wellbeing for your employees actually means is:
- Higher levels of employee retention: The happier your employees are, the less likely they are to leave. Whereas employees with lower levels of employee wellbeing, will be looking to jump ship.
- Higher productivity: Happier employees being more productive is a well documented fact. And not only that, when your employees have a positive employee wellbeing, they are happier working longer hours too!
- Easier recruitment: As employee wellbeing increases and you introduce more initiatives focused around this, your company naturally becomes a more attractive company to work for. Which also gives you more choice over who to hire, allowing you to hire stronger employees.
- Your team will be more experienced: Having a stronger talent pool to choose from will also give you more choice over who to hire, allowing you to hire stronger employees. And the employees you do have, will stay longer and be more experienced at your business.
Tips To Improve Your Employee Wellbeing
Championing the positive employee wellbeing of your team members can have huge impacts for your business. The CIPD found that just over half (51%) of organisations take a strategic approach to employee wellbeing. And unsurprisingly, these organisations report positive outcomes from this, for the individual employees and for the organisation as a whole.
So what are some employee wellbeing strategies you can implement in your own business?
1: Have a defined onboarding process that works for you
Crucial to your employee’s wellbeing, is making them feel a part of the team. And this starts at the beginning of their time at your business, with their onboarding.
An onboarding process is more than simply showing an employee their responsibilities and how to do their job. It’s also about helping them form relationships with their colleagues and teammates, and to make them feel like a valued part of the business. So that if they are struggling or need help, they know who to turn to.
And having a structured onboarding process can have huge impacts on employee retention, because your employees are happier in their work. They can be as much as 18 times more committed to their work!
2: Use your company culture to your advantage
If your employees enjoy their time at work, have a positive wellbeing, they’ll be more invested in their job, and more likely stay for longer. Having a strong company culture can reduce employee turnover by up to 35%!
And a strong company culture that your employees will enjoy, starts with you.
If it’s a social and collaborative atmosphere you’re looking for, then you want team lunches, events outside of work hours and team building days. If you want a competitive environment for driven individuals, like sales and recruitment, then you want holiday incentives and social incentives like days out paid for by the company.
For more information on the importance of building a company culture, you can read our full guide here.
3: Create an environment where your employees have a real work-life balance
As an employer it can fall to your shoulders to help your employees have a proper work-life balance, and a separation between the two.
With the prevalence of remote and hybrid working, the lines between work and home have become even more blurred. In fact, 73% of professionals feel burnt out, due to a lack of separation between work and home.
So it can fall to you as an employer to have a greater involvement in the management of your team. Having greater insight into working hours and manageable workloads, making sure that your team doesn’t feel obligated to work into the evenings and weekends. Because when they do, they’ll start looking elsewhere.
4: Offer the incentives that really matter to your employees
Incentives like unlimited holidays, work from anywhere policies, and mental health days off are becoming more commonplace. But are they what will really improve your employee wellbeing?
The best course of asking when introducing new incentives can be to sit down with your employees and actually ask them what would be best for them. Would they like flexible work hours so they can pick up children from school? Or an early finish on Fridays to go for drinks with colleagues after work? What’s more important to them?
This helps to give your employees the perks and benefits that really matter to them, while giving them a voice in the direction of the business and making them feel involved.
5: Remote, hybrid, flexible working
Remote work has never been more in demand, Back in 2021, a survey from Owl Labs into remote and hybrid working found that 84% of employee preferred to work remotely, and a third (32%) said they would look for a new job if they were forced to return to the office full time.
And this hasn’t changed. We asked our audience here at Dynamic, about what mattered most to them when they were looking for their next job, and the answers speak for themselves.
So if your business can offer remote working, it can be one of the most impactful things you can do to improve employee wellbeing and retention.
For more reasons on why you should consider making the switch to remote or hybrid work, read our blog here.
6: Employee recognition
Something often overlooked by businesses and by individuals themselves, is recognition for their work.
As humans, we need to feel that the work we do matters. To feel like our work has a positive impact on the business or on ourselves. To keep people motivated and have a positive mental attitude to their work and career, it’s pivotal to make them feel like a valued member of the team and that their contribution is noticed.
This can take the form of rewards or incentives that drive performance and offer recognition of work. For example, as an IT recruitment agency, the recruitment consultants here are offered financial and holiday incentives, to reward the hard work of the team. Other businesses offer bonuses, and more flexible working to high performers.
7: Continual progression and a structured career plan
Similarly, employees need to feel like their career is going somewhere, that they are progressing as a professional and in their career. Which makes it pivotal that you have a structured and transparent career progression plan.
This gives your employees goals to aim for and to work towards. That they can see how their work is benefiting them as a professional. Additionally, it also gives your employees a sense of how their work is an investment in their own progression at the company, making them less likely to leave.
8: Regular pay rises and salary reviews
And lastly but certainly not least, is salary reviews and pay rises. Salary is becoming a bigger stressor in your employees lives, with rampant inflation and the rising cost-of-everything. In fact, 34% of people in the UK feel anxiety around money every month.
Not only is it important to reward your employees proportionally as they become more experienced and more valuable to the business. It again ties into the feeling of progression for your employees, that their work is recognised. Not just as a boost for the wellbeing of your employees outside of work.
Frequently Asked Questions on Employee Wellbeing
What is Employee Wellbeing?
Employee wellbeing is the mental and physical wellbeing of your employees, focused around their work-life. It can have a huge amount of factors, including: Economical, relationships with colleagues, relationships with managers, career prospects, their work environment… The list is truly endless.
How Important is Employee Wellbeing for Employee Retention?
Employee wellbeing can have a massive impact on your employee retention. Your happier employees are logically more likely to stay at your company longer. Meaning you’ll spend less on employee retention while they also become more valuable employees for your business.
Additionally, it makes your employees happier workers who are more likely to recommend your company to friends and their wider network, making them ambassadors for your brand. Thereby improving your employee attraction efforts as well as retention.
Will Reducing Working Hours Improve Employee Wellbeing?
Employee wellbeing and the amount of time your workers spend in the workplace are intrinsically linked. But not in the way that you may think.
When your employees don’t enjoy their work, the amount of time they spend in work, unsurprisingly reduces their levels of happiness at work.
But conversely, when your employees have strong employee wellbeing and job satisfaction, working longer hours doesn’t lead to a negative impact on their overall happiness at work.