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Can your organization afford to ignore employee well-being? Forget discounted access to fitness centers and the 'better-for-you' menu already available in the office cafeteria. Today’s comprehensive workforce well-being programs encompass much more, including engaged leadership across the company, transparent communication and easy accessibility.
A recent survey conducted by Deloitte and Workplace Intelligence in the U.S. and three other countries found that faced with heavy workloads, job stress and long hours, many employees currently struggle with sub-optimal levels of well-being with at least half reporting worsening health, exhaustion or depression. About three-quarters said they don’t take enough time off to help them disconnect from work. As a result, more than half reported considering finding work elsewhere with a company that would better support their well-being.
Research has shown that proactive, organized employee wellness programs can result in improved productivity, higher engagement and increased morale — all of which can boost the bottom line. Yet many employers are falling short in finding potential solutions and not empowering managers who could have a direct impact on workplace well-being.
To attract and retain top talent, here’s how to leverage the benefits of an employee well-being program.
Understand Why Employee Well-Being Matters
With organizations continuing to expect personal responsibilities be managed around work while also imposing longer hours or round-the-clock availability, it’s no wonder employees are feeling the crunch. Worker well-being took on even greater importance following the pandemic, the ‘Great Resignation’ and subsequent labor shortage.
“The pandemic uncovered a lot of dynamics that were already there; it just pulled the veil off the inequalities and the stress that workers face in the workplace. And because the labor market has become very tight, employers have become a lot more concerned about attracting and retaining good employees,” said Meg Lovejoy, PhD, research program director of the Harvard/MIT Work and Well-being Initiative, a multi-disciplinary research and policy initiative that aims to share insights and strategies to rethink, reorganize and redesign the workplace.
A partnership between Harvard and MIT’s Sloan School of Management, the program’s objective is to provide a deeper understanding of employee well-being and identify best practices to improve workers’ lives.
“Many decades of occupational health research have shown that working conditions and the demands of work are a significant source of stress and even poor health for American workers. It's not surprising; most adults spend most of their waking hours at work,” noted Lovejoy.
“Part of what we're trying to change the message on is that we often don't think about work or the workplace as an important driver of health outcomes, yet there’s so much research showing that chronic stress in a workplace over time can create serious health outcomes, like cardiovascular disease and diabetes.”
In a time when workers — especially low-wage workers — have less flexibility and predictability over when they work, economic and time precarities are common, added Lovejoy, whose team likened the health risks posed by heavy work demands to the effects of regular exposure to second-hand smoke.
“The research finds that this is tremendously stressful and harmful to mental health, sleep and the ability to balance work and family life,” she said.
A smaller but equally critical body of work also shows that when you strategically intervene in work to improve worker well-being outcomes, you can get successful outcomes – both for worker health and well-being and for the bottom line, added Lovejoy.
Committing to workplace wellness can foster worker engagement and retention, improve performance, and reduce absenteeism and burnout.
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Do Your Due Diligence
Employee well-being is quantifiable. Organizations can define it, measure it, understand it, and then, most importantly, transform it within their companies, said Jim Harter, Gallup’s chief scientist of workplace management and well-being.
By measuring how employees experience and perceive their lives, Gallup gathered data for decades that focuses on well-being measures such as its positive and negative emotions index to evaluate whether workers are thriving, struggling or suffering. It identified five universal elements of well-being: career, social, financial, physical and community. One — career well-being — has been shown to be the foundation for all the others. That means employers can have a huge impact by focusing on improving people’s well-being at work.
“We've had a chance to study productive teams in a broad range of organizations, industries and geographies, and then link employee perceptions to outcomes that are important to organizations like profitability, retention rates and customer feedback,” explained Harter.
Harter said companies can reap the benefits of workplace well-being programs if employee well-being is properly defined — both in terms of individuals’ needs and those of the organization.
“If you have clear expectations, get people the resources they need to do their work right, make sure employees are feeling cared about and recognized when they do good work, and feeling connected to the mission and purpose of the company, then you'll see very positive outcomes,” he said.
Get the metrics and definition wrong, and you’ll see negative outcomes instead.
“People will be much quicker to leave the organization, and the quality will start to suffer because you have less discretionary effort on the part of employees. Workers will be less likely to be vigilant around accidents on the job, and more likely to miss out on customer needs. They'll be looking out for themselves instead of what the organization's interested in,” he added.
Transform Managers Into Coaches
Help workers feel valued and supported by encouraging managers to shift from an administrative style of management to a coaching mindset where the goal is to develop employee performance and provide meaningful feedback, suggested Harter.
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“Managers need to be better at setting expectations with employees, but also involving them in setting expectations so they have some ownership for their work,” he explained.
“Since the pandemic, the role of managing has never been more difficult, but it's also never been more important. It gets easier if you're in touch with your people; have at least one meaningful conversation every week with each employee to get ahead of issues before they escalate.”
Accountability is critical too, so provide feedback on worker performance and progress to foster stronger connections.
“When you start to build trust, people accept critiques because they believe their managers are looking out for their best interests,” said Harter.
Trust between leaders and the employees they manage then opens the door to discussing overall well-being, where resources such as referrals to an employee assistance program can be offered.
Related Article: Be Purposeful in How You Connect With and Coach Others
Think Social
Once leaders become more comfortable as coaches and trust has been built, consider incorporating social events among employees with common interests, advised Harter. Managers can handle career well-being, but appointing well-being ambassadors or champions in categories including physical, financial, social or community well-being can yield great results: building best practices while forging bonds between workers and leaders.
“We found that when you see change in well-being, it's generally when you're combining a couple of the elements together, because they reinforce one another,” he added.
“For example, a community run hits most of these elements: there’s a career and social aspect because it's with people at work. You might donate some money to the run — the financial aspect. The run itself represents the physical and community components.”
Set Your Organization up for Success
Lovejoy’s team identified three principles that could improve employee well-being: giving employees more control on the job, taming excessive job demands and improving social relationships in the workplace. The Employer Toolkit examines each of these principles in greater depth.
The final module, Get Started, provides an action plan and resources to move forward, including how to get buy-in from the C-suite and how to drive business value by cultivating worker well-being. It also offers project planning tools, templates and tips to establish a communication plan, determine a timeline and monitor progress.
But companies can introduce small changes that make a big difference. For instance, Lovejoy cites a pilot project where several Gap stores in San Francisco and Chicago sought to improve schedule stability. Participating stores boosted the adequacy of their work hours and increased associates' input into scheduling, allowing workers to swap shifts through an app. The results were immediate: Workers reported improved sleep quality and reduced stress levels.
There were also good business outcomes, notes Lovejoy.
“Productivity went up by five percent, sales went up by seven percent, and there was a reduction in turnover,” she said. “We think that’s related to the fact that workers are able to perform better when they're less stressed and better rested, and that it improves workers' commitment to the organization as well when they're treated better.”
Related Article: How Leaders Can Alleviate Workplace Burnout
Be Realistic and Collaborative
Lovejoy notes that collaboration between employees and leaders is the key to meaningful change within the organization and the best way to identify the root causes of workplace stress.
Begin by prioritizing one or two workplace changes that pose the most significant stress.
“Do a needs assessment: Construct a quick survey of workers, or bring workers together in focus groups to do some investigative research on how workers are experiencing the workplace,” she said, adding that it’s important to allow time to see results.
“Often, employers are geared towards short-term results, and if their productivity isn't improving in the first quarter, sometimes they can be quick to drop a strategy. But we really need to look at the long-term result and stick with something for at least a year or more before you can reassess where you're at.”
Above all, know that the work environment leaders provide their workers with plays a large role in worker satisfaction, engagement, retention and, in the long run, worker health and well-being.
“If you want to retain a skilled, engaged workforce in this tight labor market, think more deeply about how your workers are experiencing the workplace environment, and which pain points you can start to address to improve the work environment,” said Lovejoy.
Worker Well-Being Impacts the Bottom Line
Companies that ignore their employees’ overall physical and mental health do so at their peril, noted Harter.
“When people come to work and don't have high energy because something's dragging them down, they're not going to be as effective,” he explained. “Most leaders are concerned about the bottom line — whether they keep their customers, whether they have efficiencies in high profit — as well as safety accidents and retention rates. Organizations can't be as effective if they're continuously turning over their best employees or are concerned about the quality of the work and whether people show up on a regular basis.”
Gallup’s research has shown that when employees are well and happy, they're 32% less likely to be looking for something else. And of those actively looking for work, Harter’s team found about 60% will be gone within a year.
“People have more choices now in terms of switching jobs, so they'll be more discriminating,” said Harter.
