IS YOUR BUSINESS TAKING WELLBEING SERIOUSLY ENOUGH?
It is becoming clear that there are three key roles for us as leaders in business:
When a company focuses on the wellbeing of its staff it will see a reduction in sickness absence, enhanced employee engagement and increased staff retention. As Cecilia Fritz from Sony UK Tec stated: “To be a high performance organisation with a high performing team we must focus on staff wellbeing.” Happier staff work more effectively because they are more engaged, they contribute more and they are less likely to leave the company.
Dorian Dugmore suggests that in today’s economy, when people seek another job they increasingly look at how well prospective organisations treat their employees. Where money and perks are similar, the deciding factor will be how much they feel the company cares for its employees. It’s been estimated that replacing a single member of staff can cost around £7000, including advertising the role and paying agency commissions, so reducing staff turnover can have a significant financial impact on a business. More importantly, engaged employees help a firm deliver dramatically superior results. Research from the Hay Group shows that highly engaged employees are 50% more likely to outperform their performance targets. The same research showed that the best companies at engaging people achieve 4.5 times the average revenue growth.
So, in todays ever tighter employment market, a focus on Wellness will have a powerful impact on your bottom line. It’s no longer simply just a nice to have! Let’s look at the steps you need to take to set up an effective Wellness programme.
Determine Your Strategy
First of all, make sure you are very clear on the objectives of your programme. Set targets for the programme so that you can measure it’s effectiveness over the coming years. What key measures are you interested in? These could include reducing sickness absence overall, or reducing sickness due to “stress” in particular.
Remember too that Wellness Programmes do not have to cost the earth. One of my Members recently launched a programme whose key element was a series of walks for the staff to take during the working days in the environment around the office. The walks were promoted in a small leaflet distributed to the employees, and kept on public display in the reception area and staff room. The walks have helped manage stress, and actually improved cross functional communication in the workplace.
Involve the staff in the planning and decision making.
A top-down initiative is unlikely to work as well as an initiative where the employees have been involved and engaged from the beginning. Survey the staff, what would they like to have available? What would make their lives happier at work? What do they feel would improve their work/life balance? Would they be interested in sports facilities? Would they use them if they were available?
As you’re conducting the survey and talking to individual staff members, you will discover those who are very keen to carry the initiatives forward – these people can become your champions. They will promote the ideas within their departments and get others involved. Engage with your champions at every stage and they’ll reward you with plenty of good ideas and by creating a buzz on the shop floor.
While planning for wellbeing initiatives it’s also important to consider who will be responsible for delivering them. Do you need a dedicated member of staff responsible for staff wellbeing? Or do you need to bring in external expertise, such as a personal trainer or nutritionist?
Measure Your Results
Measure your results over time, not just in terms of reduced sickness absence and staff turnover, but also in broader terms of employee wellbeing and engagement. Do employees enjoy coming to work? Do they feel they have a good work/life balance? Would they recommend your company to their friends as a great place to work? Running wellbeing surveys at intervals to gain this sort of feedback will give you a measure of how effective the wellbeing programme is.
Introducing your Wellbeing Initiatives
How you introduce the programme is key. Participation must be voluntary and no-one should be made to feel second-best or “wrong” for not wishing to partake. Incentives might help increase participation, but be very aware of not causing any sector of your workforce to feel victimised because they are not yet ready to take action to improve their wellbeing. In addition to staff buy-in, you will also need the support of your senior management team. They need to be convinced that a happy, healthy workforce is a more productive workforce and ultimately, better for the bottom line.
Suggestions for Wellbeing Initiatives
Your company size, location, and the kind of work you do will determine what wellbeing interventions and initiatives you can introduce. Here are a few suggestions to start your ideas flowing:
Education
Physical activities
Nutrition and diet
Mental and emotional
Monitoring and assessing
Start a Wellbeing Programme in Your Company
You’re not expected to implement everything on the above list. Talk to your own people about what they’d like and what they feel would help their work-life balance. What you choose to offer will depend on the feedback and input you get, the size of the organisation and your budget. However large or small your business, whether your employees are office- or factory based, on the road or jetting off abroad, there is always something you can do to encourage greater health and wellbeing for your staff.
The important thing is to get started. Start small, measure often, and refine along the way. If you want to hear more about what small to medium size businesses are doing about Wellness then just give me a call.
Vistage is a community of high-performing MDs, CEOs and Business Owners who meet every month to work on their businesses rather than just being in them. For more information and to find out for yourself how Vistage is transforming today’s business leaders in Kent visit vistage.co.uk.
Paul Johnson
Your Vistage Chair in Kent
07740 441932