Get the most out of your wellbeing solution

As companies continue to struggle with negative workplace trends like ‘quiet quitting’ and ‘bare minimum Monday,’ many are focused on finding solutions to improve employee engagement and wellbeing. Organizations invest in their wellbeing offerings, and while there are some improvements to point to overall the headlines continue to tell the same story, one of a disengaged, burnt-out workforce. C-suite might say that progress is being made with 84% of executives stating their company has made public commitments to workplace wellbeing.

Yet, employees remain unaware of these commitments, with only 39% of employees reporting that their organization has made a public commitment to wellbeing and 44% even insisting they are certain their employer has, in fact, made no commitments. And when comparing the results of polls asking individuals within an organization about their wellbeing with that of polls asking C-suite about the wellbeing of those employees, there is a sizeable gap in perceptions. Executives perceive the situation to be much better than the employees experiencing it. If your workplace wellbeing benefits are not making the impact you hoped, here are three key areas to get back on track.

Integrated offerings

Wellbeing involves the whole human. The brain and the body are inextricably linked and have a direct impact on one another. From the food we eat to the way we move to how we show up on our work teams, it is all connected. It’s time to change the narrative around employee engagement and wellbeing and to recognize that personal development, professional development, and employee health are all directly linked to one another.

Holistically supporting your employees involves your wellbeing benefits and learning and development (L&D) strategies to be connected. However, this is seldom a reality. Within a large organization, the reality is that the L&D decision-makers and the wellbeing and benefits decision-makers do not work closely together, and there’s a good chance they don’t even know one another. This is the first place to start when it comes to supporting employees.

When discussing sustainable performance and employee wellbeing there is a shared responsibility between the employee and the employer. The employer must create an environment that is conducive to prioritizing wellbeing while the individual must carry a degree of personal accountability and take advantage of opportunities to prioritize their own health.

L&D programming for individuals should focus on building the critical skills of self-awareness and self-regulation while arming them with knowledge about the tools they can use to combat burnout. This L&D content should map to the wellbeing benefits provided for employees, such as a fitness center, nutrition offerings, and wellbeing apps, teaching them the importance of these offerings and how to make the most of them.

While leaders should have access to the same L&D opportunities to focus on their own wellbeing, leadership development should also teach those with influence over your organization’s culture what they can do to create an environment conducive to the wellbeing of their teams. Providing individuals with the skills required to prioritize their wellbeing is ineffective if they aren’t in a work environment where they feel they can use those tools. Providing an intentional approach to enhancing team dynamics and strengthening the sense of belonging for all employees is the bedrock required for wellbeing offerings to be used and have an impact.

So ask yourself, do the individuals in your organization who purchase wellbeing benefits and the people in your organization who build or invest in personal and professional development work closely together? Do they even know one another?

Autonomy

Every human wants it. Fundamentally, autonomy and a sense of agency over one’s own life is something that employees crave. The person who knows what someone needs in a given moment to recover from a challenging bout of work is that person. As workplace benefits are put in place to help support wellbeing, it is critical to look at whether employees are prevented from using those benefits when they need them most.

Do you have a fitness center, meditation rooms, nap pods, or other wellbeing benefits that team leaders indicate must only be used in the morning, at lunch, or after work? Do employees have autonomy over their schedule and the ability to visit the fitness center for a quick run or take 15 minutes on the rooftop terrace to get some fresh air anytime they need it? Or would that afternoon departure from their desk be viewed in a negative light? Allowing employees to have autonomy over their schedule so they can engage with wellbeing benefits when they feel they need them the most is critical to the success of the offering.

Reflect on your organization. Would it require a noticeable cultural shift to view an intentionally timed microbreak, run, meditation, guitar break, etc., during the day as a positive influence on individuals and their ability to produce quality work without the internal friction that leads to disengagement or burnout?

Model the behavior

We all know that actions speak louder than words. Even if employees have the skills and resources to prioritize wellbeing and the autonomy to use those skills and resources when they want, programs still fall short if leadership isn’t modeling the use of those benefits. This is especially true for your high-potential employees. They are watching and interpreting leaders’ actions as being representative of what it takes to have upward mobility and success within your organization. This is an area where there is once again a gap between the perceptions of leaders and individuals.

Those in the C-suite generally agree that employees are more likely to be healthy if their executives are. When asked this question, 84% responded affirmatively. A large percentage (72%) also state that they “always” or “often” highlight aspects of their own wellbeing with employees. Yet when employees are asked if their leaders model behavior around wellbeing, only 16% say yes. So even if given explicit permission to use the benefits your organization provides them, if they never see their leadership team using them, it is a sure bet they won’t either.

Three simple questions

So, if you find yourself perplexed why investments in wellbeing benefits aren’t producing the return on investment you had hoped, ask yourself three questions about your organization:

• Are your personal and professional development (L&D) teams collaborating with your health and wellbeing benefits teams?
• Does your culture give your employees genuine permission to engage with those benefits in the way they want, when they want?
• And do your leaders model a behavior that demonstrates a priority being placed on wellbeing?

Read more: Overall employee wellbeing is key: Employers answer the call for help

The path to wellbeing benefits that work is to provide both leaders and individual employees with personal and professional development that is focused on wellbeing and connects them to the benefits you have in place. Then, engineer your team dynamics to provide autonomy to individuals over their schedule, and have leadership teams that model wellbeing-centric behavior. You’re right to think that this will likely take a culture shift and require a lot of trust in your employees, but the payoff just might be worth it.

Stefan Underwood, SVP Performance Methodology, Exos