Employee wellness beyond the benefits package
A robust and well-designed employee wellness program can have a transformative impact, not just for individual employees, but on the workplace itself.
For employees to bring their best selves to work every day, employers and their benefits advisors must do more to address the full spectrum of their wellbeing. At the core of the most effective employee wellness programs is empathy, a vitally important element of a positive work culture that we’ve studied for more than nine years. Following are several of our key learnings.
The mental health imperative
In our research on workplace empathy, it’s become clear that supporting employees’ mental health should be considered essential, rather than optional. In 2023, more than half of the employees we surveyed said they had experienced a mental health issue. Forty-three percent didn’t feel their employer talked about the importance of mental health. What’s more, as employees’ mental health declines, so do perceptions of empathy in the workplace.
With 80% of employees reporting that they’d be willing to leave their jobs to find a more empathetic employer, the real importance of supporting mental health becomes even more tangible. There are many ways this can take shape beyond Employee Assistance Programs. One of the more effective is “operationalizing” regular touchpoints with employees.
Perhaps without realizing it, many companies initiated these efforts during the pandemic by supporting employees during remote work transitions and being more intentional with check-ins. But now, it remains important to maintain regular and consistent check-ins as part of an overall wellness program, which can take the form of support and accountability groups, or monthly educational sessions that address a range of topics, such as managing stress. As many organizations today continue to offer remote work options, these sessions can become a way to foster greater connectedness both among employees and with the organization.
Building robust programs
Ultimately, the best employee wellness programs are inclusive of a wide array of initiatives spanning physical, mental, emotional, and financial wellbeing. Today’s workforce is diverse, and one-size-fits-all wellness programs can no longer address the spectrum of employee needs. More comprehensive programs with tailored options garner better participation, engagement, and results.
If your an employer or an advisor whose clients are looking for places to start, here are options to consider:
- If an organization isn’t already, consider implementing flexible work policies. A whopping 96% of employees surveyed in 2023 said flexible work hours were their top empathetic benefit.
- Organize monthly and quarterly challenges that help participants achieve a specific goal, whether it’s daily steps, weight loss, or improving a financial habit.
- Offer monthly lunch-and-learn sessions with outside experts on a variety of mental, physical, and financial wellness topics.
- Foster gratitude and recognition by providing employees with a formal channel to express appreciation for their colleagues — and engage leadership in the exercise, too.
- Allow employees a day of PTO to volunteer for a cause that is meaningful to them.
Empathetic AI increases personalization
Amid an abundance of offerings, it’s important to be mindful that employees often feel overwhelmed by the complexities of benefits and health care, which may extend to wellness programs. Instead of scaling back, however, more HR teams and benefits advisors are finding ways to elicit help from AI — specifically, personalized and empathetic AI that blends machine learning, linguistic expertise, and generative AI to engage with people in increasingly “human” ways. After analyzing the behaviors of 18 million employees and their dependents, we found that when AI is deployed to provide personalized decision support, the rate of enrollment in voluntary benefits doubles. Among the many advantages of robust, navigable benefits programs is the powerful ripple effect from one area to another. For example, in a 2023 study, nearly half of workers mentioned financial concerns as a cause of lower mental health. Improving an employee’s sense of financial health can have a significant positive effect on their mental and emotional wellbeing. Employers and their advisors can play an important role in building this momentum, which creates a domino of benefits that filter into employee satisfaction, productivity, and retention.
Creating a culture of wellbeing
Today’s fiercely contested talent market means that attracting and retaining top performers requires more than a competitive salary. Employees are increasingly looking for alignment between their values and company culture, and this increasingly means a prioritization of their overall wellbeing.
Workplace wellness and empathy are more than buzzwords; they are signals that employers understand and acknowledge the challenges employees face across different facets of their lives, recognizing the reality that we bring our whole selves into our work every day. It’s for this very reason that employee wellness programs move the needle on bottom line metrics.
Beyond reducing health care costs or absenteeism, employees who feel valued and supported by their company are far more likely to be engaged and invested in their work. Wellbeing programs demonstrate a company’s commitment to its employees, and this commitment becomes reciprocal. For every organization that wants to achieve more than the standard, an investment in employees is an investment in their long-term success.
Tracey Orman is the health and wellness administrator at Businessolver. Learn more about the company’s State of Workplace Empathy research at www.businessolver.com.