5 Ways to assess your employee health and wellbeing strategies
Employee wellbeing is prominent on every HR manager’s to-do list, not least as we move into a new working world and the multitude of great reasons for getting it right.
From reduced presenteeism and absence levels to improved productivity and profits - the case for happy and healthy employees has already been made abundantly clear. The question is: what steps are you taking to ensure your wellbeing strategies are on point in these changing times, and how are you executing these?
To answer the latter, HR software can be a surprisingly helpful solution to getting wellbeing strategies off the ground. You could consider data mining and reporting tools to identify employee needs as well as using pulse surveys to collate staff feedback. An HR solution can also be used to communicate wellbeing initiatives on a company-wide scale in addition to targeting specific employee groups.
Now that you’ve executed your health and wellbeing strategies, let’s take a look at 5 actionable and simple ways to check that those you currently have in place are really making a difference to your people.
1. Start with activities that have clear KPIs
There are several wellbeing programs for employees that have obvious KPIs that you’ll be able to track against to inform future decision-making. For instance, as the flu season inevitably comes around each year, you may offer flu vaccinations where you can track the uptake of these against the reasons why staff were absent due to illness over the winter months. If you introduced vaccinations last year, and the majority of employees had one, you should have seen a drop in reported flu cases. By comparing the cost of lost days to that of vaccinations, you’ll also be able to evidence the ROI for the program.
2. Gain qualitative feedback to measure mental health outcomes
Measuring the impact of wellbeing initiatives on employee mental health is even more complex since stress, anxiety or burnout could be work-related, the result of personal circumstances or a combination of the two. Though even if the problem is out of an employer’s control, staff members will usually benefit from a supportive environment and the coping skills that can be developed through, say, mindfulness or exercise. While there is perhaps no obvious correlation in terms of absence, qualitative feedback through pulse surveys will give you a good idea of how employees feel, including their general happiness and wellbeing.
3. Use people data rather than relying on guesswork
People data should be at the heart of every health and wellbeing strategy, from choosing what initiatives you introduce to monitoring their success. The first step to utilising people data effectively is undertaking a detailed assessment of what employees would like to see, rather than relying on guesswork. You may have no idea that employees are looking elsewhere because of the lack of flexible working options. Yet this could be introduced, at no cost to the company, allowing staff to strike a better work-life balance and/or work more productively at home. Similarly, there is no point ploughing thousands of pounds into gym memberships if most people prefer the idea of a free lunchtime running club led by an enthusiastic staff member.
4. Track attendance rates for wellbeing activities where possible
Once your wellbeing programs for employees are underway, look at how the activities have been received. If you’ve recently organised a personal finance workshop to support employees’ financial wellbeing, find out how many people attended and gather qualitative data via pulse surveys and through direct feedback. It might be that they now feel more confident about their financial situation, have taken action, or simply feel that their employer cares about their lives outside of the workplace. You could also invest in and track attendance rates for activities such as wellbeing workshops that cover areas such as employee mental wellbeing, nutrition, physical exercise and self-development.
5. Monitor overall absence rates through your HR system
Tracking absence rates year-on-year also gives you a good idea of how healthy your workforce is, although we must be mindful about presenteeism, which can be just as damaging if not more so. Empowering managers to report presenteeism, in the same way they do for absence is a good starting point, as is making health and wellbeing a key part of performance reviews and one-to-ones. When you use HR technology for absence management and to collate real-time data from every activity on a single dashboard, you are quickly able to see whether your wellbeing initiatives are having the desired result.
For ideas on how to evolve and revive your existing wellbeing programs and other key areas of your organisation to support your people in the new normal, download the HR Transformation Playbook.
