Wellbeing programmes

Wellness and wellbeing programmes are currently hot topics with more companies looking at what they can do to help keep their employees healthy and more engaged whilst reducing absenteeism rates. However, the question is are they a fad or can they actually help your business?

We all come to work to enjoy what we do, be ourselves (as far as possible!) and thrive. Beyond the basic wellbeing needs of having a workplace that’s warm/cool enough, having regular breaks and the right level of pressure (another topic for conversation in itself…), how we are making our people work is equally as important. The moral obligation to look after our people is a consideration going back to the Industrial Revolution, and was a huge considerations for the likes of Sir Titus Salt (Salt’s Mill founder in Bradford)), William Heskworth Lever (Port Sunlight, Liverpool) and George Cadbury (Bournville, Birmingham) to name a few.

Wellbeing isn’t just about Health and Safety, sickness and prevention of absence. In order to work well for you and your employees, it needs to be part of your overall culture becoming part of your brand.

If you are looking at how employee wellbeing could help your business achieve its goals in 2016, here are my top tips on how it could work for you below!

1. Start with a blank slate
   Review where you are now and see what you currently offer, if anything. Is there any interest? What is take up/ participation like? Is it having any impact?
2. What are you trying to achieve?
   This is the business case. Has there been an increase in a certain type of illness in your business? If so, how could a wellness programme help you reduce that? The knock on impact of reduced absence costs and increased productivity could be really beneficial when you look at the monetary saving. Then set yourself a goal tied to your business goals – 1% on your bottom line is still 1%!
3. What’s the plan, Stan?
   Once you’ve decided if you want to start small with a specific project for a month or launching a longer term program, the next step is to decide what to do! Make sure you:
   • Make it fun
   • Ask people what they would like
   • Include a variety of activities
   • Mix the timings up
   • Decide if activities should be in or outside work time
   • Have a fun kick off session
   • Keep telling people about it and the benefits
4. Tie it into your Culture
   Ideas work best in cultures that support them. You can have the most amazing idea and plan, but it will fail if it doesn’t have support from the top and line managers.
5. Did our idea work?
   Take time to regular review your programme, looking at take up rates, whether people enjoyed them and whether you have achieved the goal you set at the start (remember that modest 1% impact on the bottom line?). Ask for feedback and use it when putting together your plan for next year!

Interested in finding out more about how a tailored wellbeing programme could help your business? Give us a call at HR180! Thanks to @HR_Gem #wellbeing for continuing to keep this important topic a priority in the minds of HR professionals.