Creating a wellbeing strategy should be fundamental to any business, whether you have 3 or 3,000 employees.
Health and wellbeing initiatives are seen as affordable ways for organisations to reward staff to invest in their health and wellbeing. Employees will then feel cared for and in turn more motivated to achieve company goals – this in turn will result in a productive workforce that has a positive effect on the bottom line of an employer’s cash book.
Furthermore, happy employees are also much easier to retain, while a benefits package that includes a valued health plan can act as a draw for recruiting new talent.
One of the most important factors when introducing a health and wellbeing programme is to make sure that the initiatives are designed around employees and tailored to the needs of the organisation.
Employers need to be analytical in their approach when selecting a suitable strategy for their workforce. This is because businesses must look strategically at what it is they seek to achieve from implementing a health and wellbeing programme. It may be that it needs to improve sickness absence levels, staff morale or business performance. Once the goals have been determined a company can then look at existing initiatives and identify where there might be gaps.
As has been mentioned above, there are a number of key reasons why employers should adopt an appropriately designed health and wellbeing policy – it can help improve attendance and productivity, be used as an effective recruitment and retention tool as well as reinforce the perception of a caring and committed employer. This in turn helps to reinforce and cultivate staff loyalty and dedication.